Headlines

Angola is hoping sweeping economic reforms will smooth an ambitious plan to sell key state assets, including stakes in oil company Sonangol, a share of Puma Energy and more than 100 other enterprises. Africa’s second biggest oil exporter is in a rush for cash as it struggles to cope with moribund crude prices, slumping output and years of mismanagement that left Sonangol bloated and inefficient, Reuters reported. In August, the government published an extensive list of assets that will be offered to investors via public offerings, stake sales, asset sales or tenders.

The German government has revised down its forecast for economic growth next year from 1.5 per cent to 1 per cent, in a further sign of the slowdown that is clouding the prospects for the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The economics ministry did not change its projection of 0.5 per cent growth in gross domestic product in 2019. Germany’s economy has been roiled by global trade tensions, Brexit-related uncertainty and upheaval in the auto industry.

United Group, a private equity-owned cable company, is in exclusive talks to buy Vivacom, Bulgaria’s largest telecoms group, according to people familiar with the situation, the Financial Times reported. The company, owned by BC Partners, is nearing a deal for Vivacom, which went up for sale in July, the people said. Buyout firm KKR also owns a minority stake in United Group. Vivacom was expected to be valued at about €1.2bn based on recent deals in the region for telecom assets, people involved in the sale said.

U.K. retail sales held up better than expected in September in the face of the intensifying Brexit crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The quantity of goods sold rose 0.2% from August when auto fuel is excluded, the Office for National Statistics said Thursday. Sales including fuel were unchanged. Both measures were forecast to decline for a second month. A buoyant labor market has supported consumer spending through the turmoil since the 2016 referendum. While heightened uncertainty ahead of the Oct.

Snatch-and-grab is the new hallmark of Indian finance. As a banker friend in Mumbai put it to me only half-jokingly, a unit of "grabbed" cash collateral in hand is worth more than two units of hypothetical receivables, a Bloomberg View reported. Yet this is no laughing matter. Not only is opportunistic behavior going to worsen India’s $200 billion-plus bad loan crisis, but now that everyone from the government’s sleuths to the courts are joining the melee, the ensuing chaos will limit the recovery for lenders and threaten depositors.

Chinese banks are bolstering their offshore loan recovery teams as they face a wave of bad debts linked to struggling overseas businesses and acquisitions, the Financial Times reported.

Liquidator Grant Thornton is seeking litigation funding to step up its hunt for 500 million pounds ($632.30 million) invested in UK company Euro Forex, which Chinese police have said was a pyramid scheme, Reuters reported. Reuters reported in 2016 how Euro Forex, or EuroFX, allegedly scammed thousands of investors in China and other countries. EuroFX had a British CEO and headquarters and has since been wound up. A pyramid scheme does not make real investments, but instead uses cash from new investors to pay older ones.

The resolution plans of debt-laden shadow lender Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) have hit a roadblock after the custodian of DHFL bonds said on Thursday it is taking the firm to bankruptcy court on behalf of certain debenture holders, Reuters reported. The application was filed on Oct 16 in the Mumbai Debts Recovery Tribunal to claim 268.61 billion rupees ($3.8 billion), it said. The claim is: “for recovery of the amount of debentures outstanding, along with interest, for and on behalf of all debenture holders under all the three public issues,” the custodian said.

Two companies in Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud’s property empire have gone into liquidation, weeks after it was revealed that investors in his projects faced huge losses, The Irish Times reported. KPMG has been appointed to manage the liquidation of HAB Land and subsidiary firm HAB Land Finance.

Eurozone inflation slowed to its lowest level in nearly three years and further diverged from the central bank’s target as exports contracted, raising fears of a sharp economic slowdown, the Financial Times reported. Consumer prices dropped to 0.8 per cent in September from a year earlier, from 1 per cent in August and below the initial estimates of 0.9 per cent, official data from Eurostat revealed. This was the slowest annual rise in consumer prices since November 2016.