Headlines

Atos SE said that it is seeking more cash to finance its business and might need to further reduce its debt, as the embattled French IT company delayed a deadline it set for proposals from its creditors and banks to finance a rescue plan, Bloomberg News reported. The deadline, originally on Friday, will be moved back to May 3 after first quarter performance was hurt by customers postponing signing contracts, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Atos plans to submit its new needs “in the coming days,” according to the statement.

Shares in Jinke Property Group plunged by the exchange-imposed limit today after the troubled Chinese developer’s bankruptcy restructuring filing was accepted by a court in Chongqing, Yicai Global reported. It is the first time that the bankruptcy re-organization by a large developer has been accepted by a Chinese court and makes Jinke the first mainland-listed developer to enter the restructuring process. Jinke’s share price was trading down 5 percent today at CNY1.14 (USD0.16), the daily limit imposed by the stock exchange on companies at risk of delisting.

China has taken another step to limit domestic investors’ exposure to offshore debt issued by local government financing vehicles, Bloomberg News reported. The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, the country’s interbank market watchdog better known as NAFMII, has halted registration of new credit-linked notes, a derivatives product, that use offshore LGFV debt as underlying assets. While the NAFMII earlier this month told some brokerages who are major issuers of CLNs that the suspension is temporary, it didn’t indicate when it may be lifted.

India’s household debt likely surged to a record in the final three months of last year, with signs that consumers are boosting riskier borrowing that’s been a worry for the central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Household debt touched a new high of 39.1% of gross domestic product in the October-December quarter, up from 36.7% a year ago, estimated economists Nikhil Gupta and Tanisha Ladha of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd in a report earlier this week. The figures are higher than the previous peak of 38.6% in the Jan-March period of 2021.

Turkey’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged, pausing a month after surprising markets with a big hike and delivering additional tightening since then, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Fatih Karahan left the one-week repo rate at 50% on Thursday. All but two economists surveyed by Bloomberg correctly predicted the decision, while the rest saw an increase. The lira pared gains after the announcement and traded 0.2% stronger against the dollar as of 3:14 p.m. in Istanbul.

Indonesia’s central bank delivered its first rate hike of the year, defying broad projections for a hold as it looks to support a tumbling rupiah, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank Indonesia on Wednesday raised its benchmark seven-day reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%, tightening policy settings for the first time since October last year. The decision is a “pre-emptive and forward-looking step to strengthen rupiah’s stability and cushion the impact of worsening global risks,” Bank Indonesia Gov. Perry Warjiyo said at a press conference.

Bank of Canada officials said monetary policy easing is expected to be “gradual,” as they debate the timing of a pivot to rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported.

South Korea’s economy grew at a stronger-than-expected pace in the first quarter on improving private consumption, construction increases and steady exports, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product in Asia’s fourth-largest economy expanded 3.4% year-over-year during the January-March period, accelerating from the previous quarter’s 2.2% growth, Bank of Korea preliminary data showed Thursday. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy grew 1.3% for the first three months of 2024, faster than the prior quarter’s 0.6% expansion, according to the central bank.

In a conference room of the run-down headquarters of Brazilian retailer Americanas SA, Camille Loyo Faria agrees that the office has seen better days, Bloomberg News reported. It’s “ugly, as a company in judicial recovery should be,” the chief financial officer says. The 50-year-old started at the Rio de Janeiro-based company on Feb. 1, 2023, in the wake of its bankruptcy protection measure and accounting fraud that eventually reached 25 billion reais ($4.8 billion) — one of the biggest-ever in Brazil. It’s just the latest company that Faria has helped pull out of distress.