Headlines

India’s Shapoorji Pallonji Group is looking to sell its solar power plants and road assets to reduce debt by as much as 40 billion rupees ($558 million), a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. The 154-year-old group, controlled by the reclusive billionaire Pallonji Mistry and his family, expects the deals to be clinched by March next year, the person said, asking not to be identified as the discussions with prospective investors are private. A spokesman for the Mumbai-based conglomerate declined to comment on asset sales or the total group debt.

Qinghai Provincial Investment Group Co. has again missed a coupon payment on a dollar bond, a sign that a local government-led debt restructuring has yet to ease finances at the Chinese state-backed aluminum producer, Bloomberg News reported. The company has yet to wire funds to pay a coupon that came due Thursday on a $300 million 2020 note, according to a person familiar with the matter. It is in talks with financial institutions for funds to make a delayed payment, said the person who is not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.

European banks have been given more time to set aside funds to cover losses from loans that go bad, after the European Central Bank bowed to pressure from Brussels lawmakers to water down its plans for a tougher treatment of toxic debts, the Financial Times reported. The move, which follows two years of debate between the central bank and European lawmakers, will be a relief to Italian politicians and banking executives who had protested about the initial proposals from the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism.

Jamie Oliver is looking to move on from the collapse of his 25-strong restaurant group in the UK, by recasting his business interests to focus on his campaigning efforts against junk food and child obesity, the Financial Times reported. Mr Oliver, who has said that he was “utterly devastated” about the bankruptcy of his Jamie’s Italian chain in May, will unveil a report on Friday that is the first step in an effort to achieve B Corp status for his media and book publishing business, Jamie Oliver Group.

Trading Argentine bonds has become a test of endurance as the prospect of a possible default triggers wild price swings and volume dries up, Bloomberg News reported. The Liquidity Assessment Scale of 1 to 100 (100 being the most liquid) slumped to 12 on Wednesday for the South American nation’s bonds from 68 just three weeks ago. “There is a lot of hysteria in the market and it is causing a lot of uncertainty on valuations,” said Jason Devito, a Pittsburg-based money manager at Federated Investment Mgmt Co., which has $502 billion under management.

Bangladeshi banks are facing another jump in already-crippling levels of bad debt as a move by the central bank to ease the situation backfires, Bloomberg News reported. In an effort to revive credit growth, Bangladesh Bank in May introduced an amnesty program that allowed delinquent borrowers to clean up their books by making a small upfront payment and then clearing the rest of their debt over 10 years at favorable interest rates. But it also triggered a rush by healthy companies to reschedule debt on the same terms, which now threatens to overwhelm the banks.

South Africa’s third-largest wireless carrier, Cell C Pty Ltd, had its credit rating cut to D by rating agency S&P Global after it failed to make interest payments due in July, Bloomberg News reported. There is “an increased likelihood that Cell C will be unable to repay all or substantially all of the obligations as they come due, unless it is able to restructure its debt and recapitalize its balance sheet,” S&P said in a statement on Thursday.

A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ruled that Imcopa, one of the country’s largest processors of non-genetically modified soybeans, will no longer be able to enforce early termination of a lease agreement related to two soy crushing plants, Reuters reported. Imcopa has been going through a bankruptcy reorganization since 2014 and wants to sell the plants to pay back creditors. Last week, Imcopa terminated a 10-year lease on the two plants with brewer Cervejaria Petropolis SA, prompting the beer maker to seek legal remedies.

The government of the Chinese city of Tianjin, the only shareholder of bankrupt Bohai Steel Group Ltd, is demanding that Bohai’s creditors and strategic investor implement a bankruptcy restructuring plan by the end of September, two creditor sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, Reuters reported. Bohai Steel, a former Fortune Global 500 company that was founded by the Tianjin municipal government in 2010 by merging four local steelmakers, collapsed in 2016 with more than 200 billion yuan ($28.4 billion) in unpaid debt, the biggest bankruptcy restructuring in China’s history.

Mozambique’s talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are making “encouraging progress,” as the country seeks to restore access to international financing, President Filipe Nyusi said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Mozambique has been battling to recover from a debt crisis after admitting in 2016 to $1.4 billion (£1.15 billion) of previously undisclosed lending, prompting the IMF to cut off support and triggering a currency collapse and debt default.