Headlines

India’s JSW Steel Ltd said a weaker steel market hit by falling global demand and a local slowdown could impact the turnaround time for its newly acquired Monnet Ispat assets, but its chairman played down any substantial impact on financials, Reuters reported. “It might be a little bit affected,” Sajjan Jindal, co-chair of India’s biggest steel company by local capacity, said in Mumbai on Thursday. “We have always maintained it may take about two years to turn around and I think we will still try to do it within two years,” he said on the sidelines of his company’s annual meeting.

Permanent TSB (PTSB) must shift a further €550 million in problem loans before it will meet its own targets – and get a hearing from regulators on lifting a ban on paying dividends, The Irish Times reported. The bank disclosed in its interim results, published on Thursday, that it has €1.7 billion of NPLs on its balance sheet, equivalent to 10 per cent of its loan book, having reduced the ratio from an eye-watering 28 per cent at the start of 2018. Last year, it sold €3.4 billion in non-performing mortgages in the face of considerable political opposition.

China’s Bank of Jinzhou, which suspended trading in its shares earlier this year and saw its auditor quit, said on Thursday that it is in talks with multiple parties for possible strategic investment, and that it is operating normally, Reuters reported. The statement on the bank’s website triggered fresh jitters about the health of smaller banks in China’s northeast, after regulators took over Inner Mongolia-based Baoshang Bank on May 24, rattling China’s interbank markets and sending some firms’ borrowing costs spiking.

Kenya will take at least 21 months to take back full control of its national carrier Kenya Airways, buying out minority shareholders and converting shares held by banks into Treasury bonds, a lawmaker briefed on the transaction said. The loss-making airline, which is 48.9% government-owned and 7.8% held by Air France-KLM, was privatised 23 years ago but sank into debt and losses in 2014, Reuters reported. Lawmakers voted to re-nationalise it this week.

Mario Draghi is determined to launch one last economic stimulus push before his eight-year term as president of the European Central Bank ends in October, the Financial Times reported. The question is to what degree the rest of eurozone officialdom shares his ambition. In 2012, his first year in office, Mr Draghi saved the euro from a messy break-up by saying he would do “whatever it takes” to prove the single currency is here to stay — a pledge that was the harbinger of a radical loosening of monetary policy.

German factory executives have reported that industry conditions are in “free fall”, according to a survey that comes just hours before the European Central Bank’s policy decision, the Financial Times reported. The Ifo Institute’s manufacturing business climate index slumped to minus 4.3 in July from positive 1.3 the previous month. The reading was the lowest in more than nine years and echoes a separate survey released on Wednesday that pointed to mounting troubles in Europe’s powerhouse economy.

Nissan Motor Co.’s prospects are getting bleaker by the quarter, with the Japanese automaker forced to shed 12,500 jobs and reduce production capacity by 10% as its aging lineup weighs on profitability amid a global slump in car demand, Bloomberg News reported. In the 250 days since the arrest of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial crimes, focus has shifted to the deteriorating business and the ability of Ghosn-protege-turned-accuser Hiroto Saikawa to revive the Yokohama-based company.

French fashion house Sonia Rykiel, whose brightly striped sweater dresses came to symbolise the rebel spirit of the French 1960s, has gone into liquidation, the Paris commercial court said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The brand’s founder, who was nicknamed “the Queen of Knitwear” by industry magazine Women’s Wear Daily, died in 2016, a few years after the family sold control of the label to Hong Kong investors. Sales failed to pick up under their ownership.

Russian coal and steel producer Mechel has asked banks to push back its debt repayments to 2024-2026 from 2020-2024, Interfax news agency cited an executive at Russian state lender Sberbank as saying on Wednesday. Mechel, once on the brink of bankruptcy, has been in restructuring talks with its lenders for several years, Reuters reported. Its debt to Russia’s three largest state-controlled banks - Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank - stands at 347.5 billion roubles ($5.5 billion).

The woes of the eurozone’s manufacturers are worsening, with a closely watched gauge of the export-dependent sector hitting its lowest level in more than six and a half years in July, the Financial Times reported. The purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing, produced by data firm IHS Markit, fell to 46.4 — a 79-month low. The July figure, down from a reading of 47.6 in June, is significantly below the crucial 50 level that marks steady growth. The lacklustre figures follow disappointing numbers for factory activity in both of the eurozone’s two biggest economies.