Headlines

At a time when fresh bids have been invited for the grounded Jet Airways, the deadline for completion of its insolvency resolution process has been extended till August 21 due to the nation-wide lockdown, imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Business Standard reported. The full service carrier, which shuttered operations in March 2019, is under Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) and the time period given for its completion was to end on June 13.

To truly get an idea of how much the COVID-19 pandemic seems poised to change life in Japan over the next few months or so, just take a few minutes to check out the hundreds of online crowdfunding drives currently in operation nationwide, The Japan Times reported. Campfire, Japan’s largest crowdfunding website, has created a devoted section featuring campaigns that help stores, artists and other institutions in need of financial assistance in the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The owner of Shearings, the coach holidays provider, has crashed into administration, resulting in the immediate loss of 2,500 jobs and thousands of customers' holidays being cancelled, Sky News reported. EY, the administrator to Specialist Leisure Group (SLG), confirmed late on Friday afternoon that it had made more than 2,000 staff redundant who had previously been furloughed under the government's job retention scheme. The news adds to the fast-growing toll of job losses across the economy as the coronavirus crisis continues to wreak havoc with industries such as leisure and tr

Argentina missed a bond payment on Friday and inched closer to another crushing default, which would plunge it into a new period of economic isolation and deepen a recession that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The missed deadline means Argentina has technically entered default for the ninth time in its history, the International New York Times reported. But the government signaled that it was making progress toward a deal with creditors to restructure $66 billion in foreign debt and announced that negotiations would continue until June 2.

Rich countries are set to take on at least $17tn of extra public debt as they battle the economic consequences of the pandemic, according to the OECD, as sharp drops in tax revenues are expected to dwarf the stimulus measures put in place to battle the disease, the Financial Times reported. Across the OECD club of rich countries, average government financial liabilities are expected to rise from 109 per cent of gross domestic product to more than 137 per cent this year, leaving many with public debt burdens similar to the current level in Italy.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is betting that a new trade agreement with the US and Canada will usher a flood of investment into Mexico that will help lift it out of the coronavirus crisis, the Financial Times reported. But instead of celebrating the launch of the USMCA on July 1 with champagne, US, Canadian and European companies are filing local lawsuits to protect their investments. They are also considering arbitration under the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and other international treaties.

The economic, personal, and business challenges from the Covid 19 pandemic across Ireland and across the European Union are enormous, The Irish Times reported. One fact highlights this. In the EU in the past eight weeks some 50 million people – about 10 per cent of the entire population – now rely on government-provided employment subsidies. Not only can this not continue from a Government financing perspective, but it is a crushing blow for people who cannot find work or face long-term unemployment.

Lufthansa will receive a bailout worth 9 billion euros, or $9.8 billion, to help the airline survive an “existential emergency” caused by the pandemic and a virtual shutdown of passenger air traffic, the German government said Monday, the International New York Times reported. The agreement, reached after several weeks of negotiations, will give the government part ownership of the airline for the first time since it was privatized in 1997. Berlin will take a 20 percent stake and two seats on Lufthansa’s 20-person supervisory board.

Owners of $1.2 billion in debt issued by Etihad and other airlines it partly owned have given the struggling Abu Dhabi carrier an ultimatum to agree to a restructuring or potentially face legal action, two sources close to the situation said, Reuters reported. The move is the latest turn in the unravelling of Etihad’s strategy to embark on global partnerships with airlines, the most high profile of which have since gone bankrupt.

Creditors of Odebrecht’s ethanol unit Atvos have approved a restructuring plan, the Brazilian firm said in a statement late on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Under the plan, Atvos expects to reduce its net debt to three times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, a gauge of operational profit known as EBITDA, from the current six times, as it will transfer 46% of its debt to a new vehicle. It will start paying small suppliers in 90 days. Remaining creditors will start receiving partial payments in 2022.