Headlines

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust is freezing new and early stage projects to cut costs during the coronavirus pandemic as rent collection slid, Bloomberg News reported. The move will save one of Canada’s largest retail landlords C$100 million to C$150 million ($71 million to $107 million) in development spending in 2020, RioCan said in its first quarter report Tuesday. The Toronto-based REIT said in a separate investor presentation that it collected 55% of its rent in the first quarter. The company expects 28% to still be received and has agreed to deferrals for 17% of its tenants.

BNP Paribas warned coronavirus could knock a fifth off its 2020 profits as it revealed a €184m blow to its equities trading division after complex derivatives products suffered in volatile markets, the Financial Times reported. The French bank said on Tuesday its net income could fall 15 per cent to 20 per cent this year, with Covid-19 prompting a “drastic revisit of the 2020 macroeconomic scenario”. The lender also earmarked an additional half a billion euros to cover potential loan losses.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr said the airline is in “intense” talks with Airbus SE and Boeing Co. about postponing plane deliveries as he set out plans for surviving the coronavirus storm, Bloomberg News reported. Facing shareholders at the German company’s annual general meeting -- held online because of the pandemic -- executives said they couldn’t answer questions about negotiations for a government bailout, but that it’s in noone’s best interests to see a collapse. “The future of Lufthansa is being decided in these days,” Spohr told the meeting.

Argentina’s economy minister has sought to raise the stakes with the country’s bondholders by suggesting his government would consider defaulting on $65bn of foreign debt unless investors engaged in negotiations to alleviate its financial burden while tackling the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported.

With China’s economy in free fall and millions of small businesses running low on cash, the online lending platform backed by billionaire Jack Ma entered crisis mode, Bloomberg News reported. It was mid-February, near the peak of China’s coronavirus outbreak, and MYbank had to decide whether to reduce its exposure or keep doling out loans. After a two-day marathon of calls and emails from self-isolation, the firm’s executives agreed with 25 partner banks on a potentially risky strategy: cut interest rates and turn on the credit taps like never before.

Once again, Irish banks are at the sharp edge of a global crisis, Bloomberg News reported. In 2008, it was the melting away of liquidity. Just over a decade on, it’s Covid-19. AIB Group Plc and Bank of Ireland Group Plc are the worst performers in the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index over the past year, as the pandemic amplifies investor wariness toward the lenders. To an extent, the legacy of the last crisis is shaping investor responses toward Ireland’s lenders this time round.

Comair said on Tuesday that it had entered voluntary business rescue - South Africa’s bankruptcy protection process - after a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus forced airlines to suspend all commercial flights, Reuters reported. Comair joins state-owned South African Airways, which filed for business rescue in December, as well as state-owned SA Express which was placed under “provisional liquidation” last Tuesday.

FCMB Group Plc plans to restructure half of its loans after plunging oil prices, the coronavirus lockdown and a naira devaluation hindered the ability of the Nigerian bank’s clients to repay their debt, Bloomberg News reported. Credit facilities across industries ranging from oil and gas to small- and medium-sized enterprises will be reorganized, the Lagos-based lender said in a presentation on Tuesday. New terms will include a six-to 12-month moratorium on principal debt repayments and an extension on loan maturities of up to two years.

Air France-KLM won European Union approval for a 7 billion-euro ($7.7 billion) French aid package that Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said will lead to cutbacks in domestic services, Bloomberg News reported. The carrier obtained a state guarantee and a subordinated shareholder loan, a financial life line executives say was needed for its survival in the face of a collapse in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic that has pummeled the global industry.

After dithering and division, Lebanon’s government has concluded the only way it can refloat its sinking economy is by going to the IMF, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. That would be just in time. While it is a shopworn adage that countries cannot go bankrupt, Lebanon palpably has.