Headlines

Singapore’s Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd, one of Asia’s top oil traders, has applied for a court-appointed supervisor to manage the company and restructure billions of dollars of debt owed to multiple banks, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Friday, Reuters reported. “The company is in the process of applying for judicial management, and at the same time actively looking for strategic partners to raise cash,” said one of the sources with knowledge of the company’s plans.

Market gauges measuring euro break-up risk emanating from Italy are starting to flicker, flagging the risk that another existential crisis may be building for the euro zone. Hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Italy faces recession and massive debt increases, Reuters reported. It’s also been left disillusioned with the response from wealthier northern European states to calls for help. On Thursday, EU leaders agreed a trillion-euro emergency fund to finance recovery from the pandemic but provided few details.

Problem loans at some of Standard Chartered Plc’s large clients may top $600 million as a string of corporate scandals coincides with woes at firms hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. NMC Health Plc, the hospital operator that’s uncovered evidence of fraud, and Hin Leong Trading (Pte.), the Singaporean trading house being investigated by police, represent nearly $500 million of lending for Standard Chartered, according to public filings. Separately, a South African farm bank that the London-based company lends to has defaulted on some of its debt.

Argentina and the province of Buenos Aires will start setting up virtual meetings this week with institutional investors as they continue the process of restructuring more than $76 billion in debt, according to people familiar with the plan, Bloomberg News reported. The national government will call on about 20 institutions and funds -- including BlackRock, Ashmore and Fintech’s David Martinez -- to present its offer to restructure $69 billion in debt, the people said asking not to be named because the the plan isn’t public yet.

A previously unreported Brazilian court injunction last month has thrown a wrench into Bunge Ltd’s plan to take over two soy processing plants from local crusher Imcopa, according to court filings seen by Reuters. The injunction was granted on behalf of two Panamanian entities identified in the filings as “third parties,” Reuters reported. It effectively suspended a bankruptcy court auction in which Bunge had bid a combined 50 million reais ($9.16 million) for the plants. The Feb.

Norway’s parliament voted through a new company restructuring law on Friday that could help save Norwegian Air and many other companies from potential bankruptcy as a result of the restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19, Reuters reported. The legislation replaces current regulation on debt negotiations and relaxes rules for converting debt into equity. “(The new law) is a more efficient tool to ... sort out what parts of a business can be strong enough to survive,” Justice Minster Monica Maeland told parliament.

South Africa’s government and specialists appointed to try to save the state-owned airline have agreed to extend a deadline for trade unions to agree staff severance terms, a letter from the public enterprises department showed on Saturday, Reuters reported. South African Airways (SAA) entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December and its fortunes deteriorated further when the coronavirus pandemic forced it to suspend all commercial flights.

Virgin Atlantic is still talking with the British government about a bailout package to cope with the devastating effects of the coronavirus outbreak on travel as well as focusing on private sector funding, a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The comments came after the Sunday Telegraph reported here that founder Richard Branson was seeking a buyer for the airline and had set a May-end deadline for a sale, and that talks with the government for a 500 million pound ($618.35 million) bailout package had been "effectively shelved,” Reuters reported.

The Swiss economy is expected to suffer its biggest contraction since the mid-1970s this year and recover only slowly in 2021, the government revealed in a bleak new outlook, Bloomberg News reported. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Bern slashed its forecast on Thursday, saying the economy was expected to shrink 6.7% in 2020, faring worse than it did during the financial crisis. That’s because in addition to the downturn globally, private consumption in Switzerland would face headwinds from rising unemployment and people’s uncertainty about the future.

Investors holding debt protection on Lebanon are in line to share compensation of $215 million after the government defaulted for the first time in its history, Bloomberg News reported. Firms holding credit swaps on the heavily-indebted nation will receive 86% of the amount covered by the instruments, according to the final results of an auction to settle the contracts on Thursday. Credit default swaps pay out when a borrower fails to pay its debt and are used by investors to make negative bets on borrowers or as hedges for bond investments.