Headlines

Centrica is to cut a further 5,000 jobs as the lossmaking energy supplier accelerates cost cuts after the coronavirus crisis added to several difficult years marred by mass redundancies, profit warnings and dividend cuts, the Financial Times reported. Half of the job cuts announced on Thursday will come from leadership, management and corporate roles as Chris O’Shea, who took over from Iain Conn as chief executive in March, seeks to simplify the energy group behind the British Gas brand. The latest redundancies add to 12,500 jobs slashed since 2015 in an effort to save £2bn by 2022.

Emerging-market economies are grappling with a new dilemma as they begin the slow journey to recovery: how to rescue state-owned businesses without also triggering a debt crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Cash-strapped governments in Indonesia, India, South Africa and elsewhere are being pressured to bail out national airlines, energy utilities and other state businesses brought to their knees by virus-related travel restrictions, collapsing demand and plunging oil prices.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is facing resistance from the agriculture industry, businessmen and even pot-banging citizens after announcing a decision to seize one of the world’s largest soy meal and oil exporters, Vicentin SAIC, Bloomberg News reported. Argentines from Buenos Aires to the northern city of Avellaneda, where Vicentin is headquartered, protested against the expropriation. On Wednesday evening, the sound of banging pots and pans could be heard in the capital, a traditional form of protest.

Since India announced last month that it would temporarily suspend its insolvency law amid the pandemic, credit investors have grown concerned that some weaker borrowers may use the development as an excuse to delay or avoid debt payments, Bloomberg News reported. Yield premiums jumped after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled the suspension, and the extra spread that investors demand to hold short-term AA rated debt over AAA notes has risen to its highest in about nine years.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG revealed the full extent of potential job losses, saying cost cuts and moves to shrink the fleet will leave it with a surplus of 22,000 full-time positions, Bloomberg News reported. Europe’s biggest airline has begun talks with unions representing pilots, flight attendants and ground staff and aims to minimize the number of people dismissed by reducing working hours and other measures, it said in a statement. An agreement should be reached by June 22.

NWS Holdings Ltd., a unit of one of Hong Kong’s biggest property developers New World Development Co., has applied for a license to manage distressed loans in China, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported. NWS has submitted the application to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission for a permit in southern Hainan province, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private.

Ukraine’s recovery from its coronavirus-induced slump may take four years, the International Monetary Fund warned, after approving $5 billion of aid for the eastern European nation this week, Bloomberg News reported. “Under the baseline, the pace of economic growth is projected to pick up only gradually in the years ahead, to around 4%, as some further progress is made in implementing structural reforms,” the IMF said Thursday.

Latin American countries should quicken steps for airlines to renew domestic flights no later than July before more companies are forced to declare bankruptcy or close, a high-ranking official of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The trade group estimated losses for airlines in Latin America at $4 billion this year, with total losses for the industry expected to reach $84 billion globally. Latin America has imposed stricter travel restrictions than most regions to fight coronavirus.

Ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded South Africa’s Land Bank deeper into subinvestment grade after the state company missed another debt interest payment due to liquidity challenges, Reuters reported. The Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa (Land Bank), the country’s largest agricultural-focussed lender, defaulted on the loans totalling 50 billion rand ($3.01 billion in April. And in a notice on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on June 1 Land Banki said it was not in a position to meet interest payments of nearly 120 million rand.

East African finance ministers will have to strike a balance between spending to rebuild economies battered by the coronavirus scourge and burdening their already heavily indebted nations with more loans when they present 2020-21 spending plans, Bloomberg News reported. Foreign exchange from mining and agricultural exports, tourists and remittances have dropped precipitously, and revenue from domestic activity is drying up, forcing governments in the region with some of the world’s fastest-growing economies to borrow.