Headlines

At least two Brazilian airlines and planemaker Embraer SA have hired investment banks to help with talks with state development bank BNDES for government support, sources with knowledge of the matter said, Reuters reported. Embraer has hired Itau BBA, the investment banking unit of Itau Unibanco Holding SA, two sources said. Embraer is seeking credit lines between $1 billion and $1.5 billion after a deal with Boeing Co fell through. Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported earlier on Wednesday that Embraer hired Itau BBA.

Italy’s UniCredit posted its biggest quarterly loss in three years on Wednesday and cut its profit outlook for 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic threw its strategic overhaul off course, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Jean Pierre Mustier told analysts there was too much uncertainty to provide profit guidance this year and it would be late 2020 or early next year before he could update them on a turnaround plan he had unveiled in December. “It is too early to quantify the shape and pace of any recovery and hence to give any updated guidance on the full year ...

Shopify Inc. surged on Wednesday to become Canada’s most valuable company -- but can the e-commerce giant survive being No. 1? Ottawa-based Shopify edged past Royal Bank of Canada to become the largest publicly listed company in Canada, Bloomberg News reported. The achievement comes with a dubious distinction, however: those that leapfrogged the value of Canada’s largest bank in the past have faltered. Royal Bank, incorporated in 1869, has been Canada’s most valuable company for years, but has been been eclipsed on a few occasions.

South Africa’s Investec Property Fund (IPF) said on Wednesday it expects retailer Edcon’s decision to seek bankruptcy protection to have a limited impact on its business, Reuters reported. Last Wednesday South Africa’s biggest non-food retailer filed for a business rescue - the nation’s bankruptcy protection process - becoming the country’s first major corporate casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.

HSBC Holdings Plc, already on the hook for $600 million in loans to fallen Singapore oil giant Hin Leong, has taken steps to oust the management at another energy firm, claiming it used the same cargo to secure financing from multiple banks, Bloomberg News reported. Europe’s biggest lender filed an application to Singapore’s High Court on May 4 to put ZenRock Commodities Trading Pte Ltd. under so-called judicial management, a form of debt restructuring in which a third party runs the company, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

German factories saw demand collapse in March, when measures to contain the coronavirus brought the economy to a sudden halt, Bloomberg News reported. Orders fell 15.6% from the previous month, the most since data collection started in 1991 and more than economists predicted. While all sectors were affected, investment goods plunged heavily. The Economy Ministry warned of big declines in production due to the virus. The report comes as forecasters struggle to put a number on the economic damage caused by the pandemic.

Argentina’s government said it’s open to new proposals from it’s creditors to restructure $65 billion in debt, signaling a greater willingness to negotiate in talks to avoid another chaotic default, Bloomberg News reported. “We are willing to consider any combination of reduction of interest, reduction of principal, extension and maturity of grace period that respects the constraints that define what is sustainable,” Economy Minister Martin Guzman told Bloomberg News in an interview, two days before a government’s offer to bondholders expires.

South Africa does not want a fire sale of the assets of troubled national airline SAA nor for the carrier to be liquidated, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Gordhan told a parliamentary committee that the government was in talks with rescue specialists in charge of state-owned South African Airways (SAA) on how best to save the airline, which entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December.

Lebanese banks are working on a national financial rescue plan that would preserve some of their capital rather than writing it all off as outlined in a government programme, the banking association head said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) has criticised the plan approved by the government last week, saying it would “further destroy confidence” in the heavily-indebted country which is facing economic and financial meltdown.

A rally in Indian shares lost steam on Tuesday as banking stocks slid after a report warned of stress among lenders, at a time when millions of borrowers face losses in income amid a coronavirus lockdown, Reuters reported. The NSE Nifty 50 index, up more than 1.5% on Tuesday morning, closed 0.95% lower at 9,205.60. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.83% to 31,453.51. The easing of coronavirus lockdowns helped boost Indian markets, but the optimism began to fade as banking stocks cratered. The top four drags to the Nifty 50 were lenders.