Headlines

Philip Green’s Arcadia Group is offering to pay for an adviser to its landlords as the retailer battles for their backing on its plan to avoid collapse through a complex restructuring of its store estate, the Financial Times reported. The fashion company, which owns chains from Topshop and Topman to Dorothy Perkins and Wallis, wants to cut its sprawling store portfolio and pay lower rents. It is proposing to fund investment bank PJT Partners to negotiate on behalf of the property owners, said three people briefed on the talks.

The last stronghold in embattled tycoon Anil Ambani’s phone carrier-to-power empire is also developing fault lines. Reliance Capital Ltd., his financial services business that almost doubled its profit in five years, had largely remained insulated from the distress plaguing the wider conglomerate, Bloomberg News reported. Now, the company that controls India’s fifth-biggest mutual fund, is racing to close a planned $2 billion of asset sales to bolster its finances after cash dwindled to 110 million rupees ($1.6 million) as of March, according to CARE Ratings.

Manufacturing activity in the eurozone continued to contract in April, albeit at a slower pace than in the previous month, according to a closely watched survey of industry executives, the Financial Times reported. The eurozone IHS Markit manufacturing index was revised to 47.9 on Thursday, up from a flash estimate of 47.8, which indicates that the majority of manufacturers reported a contraction in activity. However, this marked an improvement from the six-year low in March.

Troubles among India’s non-bank financiers will persist for at least a year even if the danger of a full-blown financial crisis has passed, according to the head of the nation’s most valuable bank, Bloomberg News reported. Tighter regulatory oversight and asset sales have staved off the worst of the problems afflicting India’s non-bank financial firms following last year’s defaults by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., according to HDFC Bank Ltd.’s Managing Director Aditya Puri.

The Netherlands and other fiscally hawkish EU members are calling for further reductions in the planned size and scope of a eurozone budget, a French political priority that has already been squeezed in negotiations in Brussels, the Financial Times reported. French president Emmanuel Macron is leading calls for the single currency to have its own budget to try to shore up its crisis resilience. EU leaders agreed in December to work on the idea in a more limited form than suggested by Mr Macron, who wanted a fund worth several percentage points of eurozone gross domestic product.

GMR Infrastructure Limited (GIL) announced execution of resolution plan for its stressed GMR Rajahmundry Energy Limited (GREL) – 768 MW gas-fired power plant in Andhra Pradesh, Business Standard reported. The company informed the exchanges on Friday morning that it has paid a portion of the sustainable debt of the project. The resolution plan which has been approved by the lenders of the project consisted of reduction of total debt of Rs 2353 crore to sustainable debt of Rs 1412 crore.

By many measures Greece has turned a corner: Its stock benchmark has jumped 26 percent in 2019, set for its best first half in two decades, and trumping European shares’ 8.1 percent gain, Bloomberg News reported. Last year, the country recorded the strongest economic growth since 2007. Greece’s 10-year bonds yield 3.3 percent, a fraction of the 37 percent the country had to pay at the height of the financial crisis. For all that, many Greeks are still struggling to claw out from under mountains of debt after a decade during which the economy cratered, contracting by more than a quarter.

Brazilian airline Azul SA has registered to participate in a bankruptcy auction for the assets of struggling carrier Avianca Brasil scheduled for next week, potentially walking back a previous decision not to participate, Reuters reported. The airline confirmed through a representative that they had registered, although he said no decision had been made whether to actually place a bid. The bankruptcy auction is set for Tuesday.

An insolvency professional (IP) may not find it easy to wriggle out of an existing transaction because of the difficult situations faced during the corporate insolvency resolution or liquidation process. This is because the insolvency regulator, IBBI, has advised the Insolvency Professional Agencies (IPAs) — who register the IPs with them — not to ordinarily accept ‘temporary surrender’ of professional membership of an IP while doing the CIRP or individual insolvency resolution and individual bankruptcy, The Hindu Business Line reported.

A businessman and his mother have been restricted for five years from acting as directors of any company, unless it meets certain requirements, after the High Court found they failed to keep proper books and records for their liquidated hairdressing supplies and beauty treatments business, The Irish Times reported. Warren Logan was executive director of Hairspray Wholesalers Ltd, Fashion City, Ballymount, Dublin, while his mother Dolores MacKenzie was a non-executive director. The company was voluntarily wound up on May 1st, 2013 and a liquidator, Jim Luby, was appointed.