Headlines

The Jordanian Cement Factories Company said on Sunday that it was filing for insolvency, citing adverse financial conditions, worsening as a result of the novel coronavirus, as the reasons for the move, the Jordan Times reported. Insolvency is a state of financial distress in which someone or a company is unable to pay its bills.

German industrial orders rebounded moderately in May and a fifth of firms in Europe’s biggest economy said in a survey published today that they feared insolvency, adding to expectations of a slow and painful recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. Germany has withstood the pandemic better than other big European countries, recording fewer COVID-19 deaths, and its economy has been relatively resilient during more than six weeks of lockdown owing to generous stimulus packages and a decision to keep open factories and construction sites.

Banks are asking a New York judge to subpoena more documents from bankrupt soy-export giant Vicentin SAIC, saying they may have been the victims of “major international financial impropriety,” Bloomberg News reported. Lenders including Rabobank, Credit Agricole, ING and the International Finance Corp., the private-lending arm of the World Bank, want copies of wire transfers by Argentina’s Vicentin and several related companies that include a meatpacker and a vineyard.

Britain has joined forces with India’s Bharti Global to buy the collapsed satellite operator OneWeb, with the two sides pledging $1 billion between them to develop a constellation that could boost broadband and other services, Reuters reported. Under the deal announced on Friday, Britain will invest $500 million and hold a stake of around 45 percent in OneWeb while Bharti will invest the same amount and provide commercial and operational leadership.

The Portuguese government agreed to buy David Neeleman’s indirect stake in TAP SGPS SA as part of a plan to provide a rescue loan to save the airline, Bloomberg News reported. “This allows us to unblock the loan and avoid the bankruptcy of a company that’s essential for the country,” Finance Minister Joao Leao said at a press conference in Lisbon on Thursday night. Like other carriers, TAP had to halt most of its operations due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Britain’s Casual Dining Group (CDG), the operator of restaurant chains Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Las Iguanas, said on Thursday it had appointed administrators and would permanently close 91 sites immediately with the loss of 1,909 jobs, Reuters reported. The company, which had employed nearly 6,000 people across 250 sites, said the move would enable it to negotiate with landlords ahead of an expected sale of the business.

An investigation into the accounting misdeeds at Luckin Coffee Inc. has concluded that the company’s chairman knew—or should have known—about the fabricated transactions that inflated the Chinese coffee chain’s sales last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. A report detailing the internal probe also said that Charles Lu, Luckin’s co-founder and chairman, didn’t fully cooperate with the investigation. The monthslong probe was conducted by a special committee of Luckin’s board with the assistance of law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Markus Braun built Wirecard AG from an obscure firm based in a small town outside of Munich into a global electronic-payments giant, the Wall Street Journal reported. From its perch at the crossroads of online commerce, Wirecard extracted fees for processing credit-card transactions on behalf of businesses. It pushed into emerging markets, bought up smaller firms and struck partnerships to recruit more customers. In its financial statements, sales and profits ticked steadily upward.

The World Bank projects the recession in Latin America and the Caribbean will be the worst downturn since reliable data began in 1901, setting back progress on fighting inequality and poverty, Bloomberg News reported. The development institution expects a gross domestic product contraction of more than 7% for 2020, making it worse than any crisis of the past century, including the Great Depression, the 1980s debt crisis and the global financial of 2008-2009, President David Malpass said.

Lebanese lawmakers urged the government to avoid a default on its local-currency debt and asked it to reevaluate central bank liabilities to help secure a critical bailout from the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. Member of parliament Ibrahim Kanaan said Wednesday that the IMF held a meeting with lawmakers earlier this month and told them Lebanon faces a choice of “no reform, no program” -- referring to the $10 billion loan the government is trying to negotiate with the Washington-based lender.