Headlines

South African retailer Truworths International Ltd said on Thursday it will advance funding of 6.5 million pounds ($8.62 million) to its British footwear unit Office as part of a rescue plan, Reuters reported. The group as a whole, which sells clothes, jewellery and homeware, as well as shoes, has been hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and store closures because of lockdowns. On Thursday, it said its headline earnings per share, South Africa’s most closely-watched profit figure, fell by 28.2% in the year to June 28.

Chinese developers are facing the biggest liquidity test in more than four years, exacerbating challenges brought on by stringent funding restrictions and a prolonged profitability drop, Bloomberg News reported. Cash reserves of the nation’s 50 largest-listed home builders were just enough to cover short-term debt as of June 30, the least since 2016 when China began deleveraging its economy, according to recent earnings data compiled by Bloomberg. That metric fell below 0.5 for eight companies, the most in four years, signaling greater risk.

Banks calculate that two-thirds of those in long-term arrears on their mortgage repayments ultimately risk losing their homes, it has emerged, The Irish Times reported. About 26,000 people are 720 days or more behind with their home-loan repayments, classing these debts as being in long-term arrears. An email from Central Bank economist Fergal McCann, responding to questions from consumer rights campaigners, says information from lenders suggests that two-thirds of the long-term mortgage arrears group have “loss of ownership flagged as the banks’ resolution path”.

The euro zone's rebound from its deepest economic downturn on record faltered in August, surveys showed on Thursday, with some countries in the bloc suffering more than others from restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Overall growth in the dominant service industry - which has been harder hit than manufacturing from lockdown measures - almost ground to a halt, suggesting the long road to recovery will be bumpy.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday asked banks and NBFCs to roll out loan restructuring scheme for COVID-19 related stress by September 15, and provide adequate support to the borrowers following the lifting of moratorium on repayment of debts, The Times of India reported. The minister urged lenders to immediately put in place a board-approved policy for resolution at the review meeting with heads of scheduled commercial banks and NBFCs through video conferencing.

France has launched a €100bn plan to rescue its economy from the coronavirus crisis with big investments in green energy and transport as well as industrial innovation, the Financial Times reported.  Announcing the “France Relance” (France Relaunch) plan in Paris on Thursday, Prime Minister Jean Castex said its “historic ambition and size” made it almost four times as large as the national plan introduced after the 2008 financial crisis. At 4 per cent of gross domestic product, it was the “most massive” plan unveiled in Europe so far relative to the size of the economy, he

Melrose Industries has posted a £685m half-year loss as the FTSE 100 buyout specialist and owner of car and aircraft parts maker GKN was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The buyout group, which purchased GKN in a £8bn hostile takeover in 2018, said its revenues for the six months to July fell by a little more than a quarter to £4.1bn.

South Africa’s Comair Ltd will require up to 1.2 billion rand ($72 million) of funding and will have to cut a fifth of its workforce to restart operations, administrators in charge of restructuring the private airline said, Reuters reported. The airline, which has been under a form of bankruptcy protection since May, will be able to start operations in December if a business rescue plan presented late Wednesday is approved, they said.

Fraudulent transactions worth Rs 17,394 crore happened at debt-ridden mortgage firm DHFL during FY07 to FY19, according to transaction auditor Grant Thornton, Business Today reported. Earlier this year, the administrator of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), appointed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), obtained assistance from Grant Thornton to conduct investigation into the affairs of the mortgage firm. Last year, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had admitted the company for insolvency resolution.

Scandinavian carrier SAS AB has secured enough backing from bondholders for a debt-to-equity plan that it says is needed to stave off bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. At a crunch meeting in Stockholm on Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of creditors voted in favor of the proposals to convert their holdings into equity and new notes, according to Lars Lonnquist, a portfolio manager at Spiltan Fonder AB and acting chairman of a committee of SAS noteholders.