Headlines

Argentine executives and graduates shocked by President Mauricio Macri’s drubbing in elections this month have begun calling and emailing in droves in search of work in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, head hunters and visa advisers told Reuters. Executive search specialists say the resumes that have deluged their offices in those countries reached a peaked after Macri lost ground to a centre-left Peronist challenger in the Aug. 11 primary elections, causing the peso to plummet in value, Reuters reported. Leftist Alberto Fernandez is now the front-runner ahead of an Oct.

The gloom hanging over the German economy has deepened after a closely watched survey of the country’s business leaders this month found that sentiment had sunk to its lowest level in seven years, the Financial Times reported. An intensifying trade war between the US and China is weighing particularly heavily on Germany’s export-focused economy, prompting calls for the government in Berlin to ditch its commitment to running a budget surplus to provide a fiscal stimulus.

Brussels is planning to simplify the eurozone’s complex budgetary rules to provide governments with softer debt reduction targets that do not push struggling economies into trouble during downturns, the Financial Times reported. In what is set to be one of the most politically sensitive debates for the next European Commission, officials are considering ways to rewrite the bloc’s Stability and Growth Pact, which has come under fire for being impossible to enforce and overly flexible for governments that are in breach of the rules.

German banks grappling with the burden of negative interest rates are fighting back against a proposal to ban them from passing on the costs to their retail depositors, the Financial Times reported. They warn that such a move could unleash “dangerous instability” on financial markets. Markus Söder, the minister-president of Bavaria, proposed the ban last week in response to fears that banks could start charging their depositors if, as expected, the European Central Bank cuts interest rates further into negative territory next month. The idea is gaining political traction in Berlin.

Investors just delivered a body blow to a company that was once Scandinavia’s biggest conglomerate, Bloomberg News reported. On Monday, the last remnant of the East Asiatic Company of Denmark lost more than 40% of its market value after a key creditor said it breached debt covenants. The development represents an existential threat to EAC, now called Santa Fe Group A/S, and has left in tatters what was once an icon of corporate Denmark. Gabriella Sahlman, an investment director at Proventus Capital Partners, told Bloomberg that the creditor thinks “there is a breach of covenants.

Singapore firms are likely to see more soured debt as the trade-reliant economy takes a hit from U.S.-China tensions. That’s the view of debt restructuring experts, for whom more bad debt could mean increased business, Bloomberg News reported. Singapore’s government cut its forecast for economic growth this year to almost zero, and weak export data have stoked fears of a recession. The nation has already been rocked by the high-profile collapse of water treatment firm Hyflux Ltd.

The International Monetary Fund’s record loan to Argentina last year was supposed to turn the page on a troubled history, Bloomberg News reported. It’s looking more like a case of déjà vu. Less than two decades ago, Argentina crashed out of an IMF program, defaulted on debt and plunged into depression. As Fund officials arrived in Buenos Aires over the weekend to assess the country’s current $56 billion bailout –- and decide whether to keep doling out cash -- some of the same warning signals are flashing.

Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA, which has been in bankruptcy protection since June, has proposed to creditors a swap of their debt for instruments similar to equity, according to a statement issued on Monday, Reuters reported. The instruments would give creditors the rights to receive proceeds of the asset sales and future profits of the companies controlled by the conglomerate. The plan, which the statement said Odebrecht filed with the court late on Monday, has no explicit discount on the 51 billion reais ($12.4 billion) debt that is being restructured.

A number of “non-binding” offers are on the table for Harland and Wolff which, if successful, could ensure a new future for the historic east Belfast shipyard which is in the hands of administrators, The Irish Times reported. According to Michael Jennings and Brian Murphy of BDO NI, who were appointed as joint administrators of the yard at the beginning of this month, there has been a “healthy level of interest” from potential buyers.

The head of Germany’s central bank has announced his opposition to launching a major monetary or fiscal policy stimulus package in response to the recent slowdown in Europe’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. Jens Weidmann said it was not time to “panic” even though the German economy was heading for its first recession in six years after shrinking slightly in the second quarter, hit by US-China trade tensions, weak global growth and fears of a chaotic UK exit from the EU.