Headlines

Lebanon needs a $20 billion-$25 billion bailout including International Monetary Fund support to emerge from its financial crisis, former economy minister Nasser Saidi told Reuters on Friday, Reuters reported. Lebanon’s crisis has shattered confidence in its banking system and raised investors’ concerns that a default could loom for one of the world’s most indebted countries, with a $1.2 billion (917.01 million pounds)Eurobond due in March.

The steady decline of Italy’s South, one of Europe’s poorest regions, is emerging as a critical issue for the country’s fragile governing coalition, as banking and industrial troubles there provide a possible opening for a hard-right party seeking to return to power, The Wall Street Journal reported. In recent weeks, the Italian government has said it will take over an important southern bank to save it from collapse, and it is fighting to keep alive Europe’s biggest steel plant and a large factory in Naples.

The Supreme Court has stayed an NCLAT order allowing Anjanee Kumar Lakhotia, the promoter of ailing MBL Infrastructure, to take over the company under a resolution plan submitted under the Insolvency Code despite a specific bar against it in the law, The Economic Times reported. The top court will now examine the issue on February 2, 2020.

Investors hit by the collapse of Lendy have expressed concerns about the spiralling costs of the administration process after insolvency practitioners warned that they could run up a bill of £2.5 million, The Times reported. Lendy, the peer-to-peer lending service, failed last May owning nearly £152 million to 9,000 investors, some of who now fear that the costs of managing the insolvency will reduce any money they get back. RSM Restructuring recorded time costs worth £1.7 million for the first six months of Lendy’s administration.

Public sector lender Uco Bank has made a recovery of Rs 900 crore from four stressed accounts where a resolution was reached under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code or outside the framework, The Telegraph reported. This puts the bank on track in its pursuit to bring down net non performing assets as a proportion of advances to less than 6 per cent, a key requirement to come out of the Prompt Corrective Action framework of the RBI. The bank’s managing director and CEO A.K.

Texmaco Rail & Engineering, the flagship company of the Adventz Group, on Friday said the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has set aside an order passed by the Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to initiate insolvency proceedings against erstwhile Bright Power Projects (lndia), now an unit of the company, The Financial Express reported.

British Steel plunged into insolvency 225 days ago. Since then, taxpayers have funded its operational losses of an estimated £1m a day, The Guardian reported. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that this can only go on for so long; a deal securing the future of the company’s 4,500 staff needs to be agreed – and fast. Chinese steelmaker Jingye has been in pole position since November’s announcement that a deal had been agreed in principle.

Personal insolvencies become more common when interest rates rise. In Canada, people are filing for insolvency at a higher rate than usual, The Post Millennial reported. According to The Toronto Star, experts are saying that we haven’t had this many instances since the financial crisis in 2008-09. President of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restricting Professionals, Grant Christensen said, “It’s fairly clear what’s going on.

JSW Energy on Thursday said it has entered into a pact with Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd (JPVL) to restructure outstanding debt of Rs 751.77 crore owed to the company, Business Standard reported. Under the pact, an amount of Rs 351.77 crore will be converted into equity shares of JPVL with a face value of Rs 10 each and Rs 280 crore will be written off, JSW Energy said in a BSE filing.

Argentina’s new government announced the issuance of $1.326 billion of dollar-denominated Treasury Bills, to be directly subscribed by the central bank, according to a decree in the official Gazette on Thursday. The issuance of the 10-year debt comes as the country’s new Peronist President Alberto Fernandez looks to pay off creditors and stave off a damaging default, Reuters reported.