Headlines

Investors are braced for more losses on Lebanese bonds as Beirut faces urgent calls to restructure its towering debt pile, the Financial Times reported. The value of Lebanon’s sovereign debt has plummeted since rating agencies pushed the dollar bonds even deeper into junk territory earlier this month. The country’s two-year bond has lost a quarter of its value over the past 30 days and now trades at 64 cents on the dollar.

Chilango’s auditor has declined to sign off its accounts six months after the fast-food chain raised £3.7m by selling controversial “burrito bonds” to hundreds of small investors, the Financial Times reported. Chilango has hired restructuring advisers RSM to conduct a full review of its options. It is considering a range of options including raising new capital or a sale as part of a pre-pack administration, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. RSM said it had been engaged to “assist on long-term planning, options and strategy”.

Steinhoff International has sold its UK furniture retailing business to Alteri Investors’ new retail fund as it strives to cut debt, the Financial Times reported. The stores Bensons for Beds, Harveys Furniture and upholstery and bedding manufacturers Relyon have been owned by the troubled South African conglomerate since 2005 but have struggled recently as UK consumers turn more cautious about big-ticket items. In the year to September 2017, the last period for which accounts are available, Bensons and Harveys made a combined operating loss of £28m on sales of £566m.

India’s central bank chief Shaktikanta Das called for stronger corporate governance at state-run lenders to make the country’s banking sector more efficient. Describing the lack of strict governance as the “elephant in the room,” Das said this had led to elevated levels of non-performing assets, capital shortfalls, fraud and inadequate risk management, Bloomberg News reported.

An attempt by lenders to get PizzaExpress Ltd. to open talks on ways to prop up the troubled restaurant chain has failed to bring its Chinese owner to the negotiating table, Bloomberg News reported. The investors, holding 70% of PizzaExpress’s most senior bonds, sent a letter to the company a week ago pledging to provide new funds, according to people familiar with the matter.

Chile is on the brink of losing its hard-won reputation as the safest bet in Latin America following the biggest social upheaval in a generation. One month into a wave of mass protests Chile’s credit-default swaps are near those of the region’s other most stable countries, Bloomberg News reported. The gap between the spread on its five-year CDS and Peru’s has narrowed 21 basis points to two basis points. The gap with Panama has disappeared over the same period, with the Central American nation now 0.6 basis point below Chile.

The withdrawal of a candidate to become Lebanon’s prime minister is once again threatening to drag out the process at a time the country faces calls to take urgent steps necessary to avoid economic collapse, Bloomberg News reported. Mohammed Safadi, a wealthy Lebanese businessman and former finance minister, put an end to his bid just two days after winning the backing of Lebanon’s major political parties. Lebanon has been without a government since Saad Hariri resigned late last month in the face of protests over mismanagement that’s pushed the economy to the verge of bankruptcy.

India has amended its insolvency and bankruptcy rules to allow for greater flexibility in resolving problems at troubled non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), the government said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reported. The change follows debt defaults at shadow lender Dewan Housing which owes close to 1 trillion rupees ($14 billion) to its debtors, who include banks and mutual funds. The new rules however, say insolvency proceedings against such NBFCs or financial service providers can only go ahead if the appropriate regulator requests such action.

Greece’s Eurobank said on Thursday it was selling two real estate portfolios worth a combined 84 million euros (£72 million) to Brook Lane Capital and plans to put a third portfolio up for sale, Reuters reported. Eurobank, which is 2.4% owned by Greece’s HFSF bank rescue fund after being bailed out during the country’s debt crisis, repossessed most of the properties, residential and commercial, after loan defaults. The bank, Greece’s third largest lender by assets, said it wanted to focus on other property assets on its books.

Even as Hong Kong has reduced down-payment requirements to help young professionals and families to buy homes, banks are beefing up mortgage application standards to ensure that a recession does not saddle them with bad loans, bankers and mortgage brokers said, Reuters reported. Last month, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, struggling to restore confidence in her administration after five months of civil unrest, approved rules allowing first-time homebuyers to borrow as much as 90% of a HK$8 million ($1 million) home’s cost.