Headlines

The resolution plan of one of India’s biggest shadow banking firms, Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), may be delayed as its creditor DSP Mutual Fund has initiated legal proceedings against it, two banking sources told Reuters. DHFL ran into trouble late last year as cracks in the shadow banking system in India began to emerge after the near collapse of another financial firm, IL&FS, stoking fears of a broader contagion, Reuters reported. In July, DHFL said it was “undergoing substantial financial stress” and may not survive as a going concern.

The cloistered quads and frescoes of the palazzo of San Salvador near the Rialto bridge in Venice have long been the property of the Italian state — but they will soon have a new owner, the Financial Times reported. In an attempt to chip away at €2.3tn in public debt the former monastery, founded in the 12th century on the orders of Pope Alexander III, is up for sale. Rome is cashing in on its valuable portfolio of state-owned assets by holding a fire sale of historic properties, from disused army barracks to forts, monasteries and lighthouses.

Almost one in six English businesses has been summoned to appear before magistrates for non-payment of business rates in the past year, prompting fresh concerns about the controversial levy, the Financial Times reported. According to business rates consultancy Altus, local authority replies to freedom of information requests suggest that 171,018 summons were issued in the year to March 31, equivalent to just under 10 per cent of all business premises in England.

A German group is interested in buying British Steel’s French factory, according to people aware of the situation, even as efforts drag on to prevent a break-up of the stricken company, the Financial Times reported. British Steel collapsed into insolvency more than two months ago after the government rejected its plea for a bailout, throwing into doubt the future of one of the country’s largest manufacturers.

Shares of a rating company that failed to foresee signs of stress at the now-bankrupt IL&FS group nosedived after reporting the lowest quarterly profit since its trading debut in 2012, Bloomberg News reported. Care Ratings Ltd. plummeted by 20% to a record low of 486.70 rupees at 12:53 pm trading in Mumbai on Friday, extending a similar-sized drop the previous day. The sharpest drop in the shares on record comes after the company reported its lowest quarterly results since listing in 2012. Care and another Indian rater ICRA Ltd.

The number of distressed companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa rose in the first half for the first time in more than two years, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s list of distressed companies rose to 47 from 39 in the first half of the year, according to the report published on Thursday. It’s the first time the list increased since the end of 2016.

Stock investors have never been so downbeat on the world’s biggest banks. China’s “big four” state-owned lenders, which together control more than $14 trillion of assets, have tumbled to record-low valuations amid mounting concern that Beijing will encourage them to bail out smaller peers, Bloomberg News reported. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, lost $11 billion of market value last week after injecting capital into a troubled regional bank as part of a government-orchestrated rescue.

Malvern Group has appointed KPMG as an administrator for its travel businesses, including Super Break and LateRooms, a day after shutting them down as one of its main shareholders defaulted on debt repayments, the audit firm said on Friday, Reuters reported. Malvern Group is partly owned by Indian tour operator Cox & Kings Ltd, which is under severe financial stress and has defaulted on debt repayments. Malvern Group’s website said forthcoming bookings had been cancelled, while customers currently on tours may be asked to pay again by the hotels.

Olaide Olasupo received an unexpected email on Monday evening. He was not to go to his classes at GSM London the following morning because the college would be going into administration, the Financial Times reported. The business student had one project left to submit before completing his degree programme when the news came that GSM London, one of England’s largest privately owned higher education providers, would cease teaching. Now he is searching for another institution that will recognise his coursework and allow him to complete his studies. “This was four years of my life.

The near-collapse of IL&FS has punctured confidence in India’s shadow banking sector and the recriminations that followed inevitably focused on the capital market fragilities that led India’s largest infrastructure lender to default on part of its $13bn of debt, the Financial Times reported. What has been overshadowed in the wake of IL&FS’s woes is the diminished state of infrastructure lending itself, the foundational brick in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to take the economy a step or two higher and stay there.