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In a related story, Bloomberg News reported that four years into one of the biggest, longest unwindings in India’s corporate history, tycoon Anil Ambani found himself in a familiar place Monday: Presenting shareholders with another plan to sell off assets and pay debt. His Reliance Group is planning to pay creditors 150 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) more by March, the embattled executive told investors on Monday in Mumbai. Financial unit Reliance Capital Ltd., whose credit rating was downgraded to default by local firms this month, will exit its lending business, he said.

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Mounting debt failures in India have been catching rating companies off guard, underscoring continued challenges a year after the landmark failure of shadow bank IL&FS increased scrutiny of the industry, Bloomberg News reported. Defaults at companies including Dewan Housing Finance Corp., Cox & Kings Ltd. and Altico Capital India Ltd. have occurred even as their long-term ratings indicated very low to moderate risk of non-payment. “Raters have not been able to detect stress in time,” said Ashutosh Khajuria, chief financial officer at Federal Bank Ltd.

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Jamie Oliver received a £5.2m dividend payout despite profits across his restaurant, food and media group almost halving last year as the celebrity chef’s UK chain collapsed, the Financial Times reported. Profit before tax across the group, covering restaurant, licensing and media operations, fell from £14.5m in 2017 to £8m in the year to the end of 2018 as a result of £9.9m exceptional costs from the failure. Jamie’s Italian went into administration in May after a rapid expansion resulted in high rent and business rates.

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Venezuela’s government is ready to resume negotiations with foreign investors on about $60 billion of defaulted debt, according to President Nicolas Maduro, Bloomberg News reported. The embattled leader said Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and Economy Vice President Tareck El Aissami, both sanctioned by the U.S., will lead talks with bondholders. While actions by the Treasury Department prevent Venezuela from paying its debt through traditional means, Maduro said his government has alternatives, including cryptocurrencies.

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In the darkest days of the 2009 recession, Germany’s industrial output was collapsing at an annual rate of more than 20%, a Bloomberg View reported. An unfathomable implosion but one that thankfully ended almost as quickly as it started. Some 10 years on, a crisis is brewing once again in the country’s industrial heartlands. The pain could prove more enduring this time. So far the problems aren’t nearly as acute as in 2009; industrial production fell by a comparatively modest 4.2% in July.

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The French government will ask Air France to “take into account” the situation of bankrupt French budget airline Aigle Azur’s 1,150 employees, said a government minister on Monday, Reuters reported. “With the secretary of state for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, we will meet the Air France executives tomorrow and we’ll have the opportunity to ask them to take into account the situation of these employees, pilots included,” Elisabeth Borne, the government minister in charge of both the environment and transport sectors, told RTL radio.

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Brazilian state-run development bank BNDES is facing losses of up to 14.6 billion reais ($3.5 billion) from loans made to conglomerate Odebrecht SA, which has been in bankruptcy protection since June, the bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Of this total, 3.7 billion reais is related to federal government losses on export financing credits, and 8.7 billion reais is loans to companies under the Odebrecht Group umbrella, the BNDES said in a statement on its website.

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Slovenian airline Adria Airways has filed for bankruptcy and canceled all flights, it said in a statement on Monday, after financial problems forced it to ground most of its planes over the last week, Reuters reported. “Bankruptcy proceedings were initiated by the management of the company because of the company’s insolvency,” Adria, which is owned by German investment firm 4K Invest, said. Adria is the latest in a long line of small European airlines to run into financial trouble amid industry overcapacity, cut-throat competition and high fuel prices.

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Air France-KLM boss Ben Smith on Friday defended his decision not to fly to the aid of two collapsed French airlines, and said market consolidation through bankruptcies would eventually benefit the country’s aviation industry and jobs, Reuters reported. Air France last week withdrew a rescue bid for Aigle Azur, which was formally wound down on Friday, and has since rebuffed overtures by XL Airways, another insolvent carrier.

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The dedicated bankruptcy court, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), ordered that insolvency proceedings be started against Mumbai-based real estate developer Lokhandwala Infrastructure under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), The Economic Times reported. The Mumbai bench of NCLT restricted the developer from creating any third-party rights or disposing of any assets. This is the second major city-based real estate developer after HDIL which has been referred for the insolvency resolution process under the IBC.

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