Headlines

Lenders of debt-ridden Jaypee Infratech will meet on April 26 and 30 to discuss revised bids submitted by state-owned NBCC and Suraksha Realty to acquire the realty firm and complete over 20,000 delayed apartments in Noida, Asian Age reported. NBCC and Suraksha group, which are in the race to acquire the Jaypee Group firm, were asked by the lenders to sweeten their offers and both the potential buyers have submitted their revised offers under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

All offers from potential buyers of a strategically located but debt-laden Philippine shipyard will be welcome, the trade minister said on Thursday, ruling out barring Chinese firms over national security fears, Reuters reported.

South Korea’s economy suffered its worst quarterly contraction since the global financial crisis as the export-driven economy felt the pinch from weakening growth in China, global trade tension and a downturn in the technology sector, the Financial Times reported. The 0.3 per cent fall in economy follows growth of 1 per cent in the previous quarter, undershooting expectations that gross domestic product would increase 0.3 per cent, according to economists polled by Reuters.

Turkey’s financial markets suffered a new blow on Thursday as the country’s central bank unnerved investors by signalling a growing reluctance to raise interest rates and disclosed a further drop in its foreign currency reserves, the Financial Times reported. The monetary policy decision, along with fresh data that show the country’s foreign currency coffers had dropped $1.8bn last week, deepened worries about the country’s deteriorating financial defences.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank abruptly called off their merger talks Thursday, saying they concluded that the perils of trying to forge a megabank with international clout outweighed the potential benefits, the International New York Times reported. But while Germany’s two largest banks answered one question that had preoccupied the country in recent weeks, they raised another: What next? The status quo is not an option for either Frankfurt bank.

The collapse of the oil price that began in 2014 was bad news for Nigerian banks, The Economist reported. A quarter of their lending was to oil and gas firms. Many businesses were left reeling after a currency crisis. The economy stuttered, then plunged into recession. Before the oil slump just 3% of loans were not being paid back. By 2017 some 15% had gone sour. The oil shock underscored an old truth: in choppy waters, it helps to be a big ship. The country’s large banks made tidy profits and now sit on sufficient capital.

Sweden’s Riksbank said it will hold its main rate steady longer than previously expected and announced an 18-month bond-buying programme to start from July — the latest major central bank to take a more dovish shift on monetary policy. The Riksbank, which on Thursday kept its repo rate at a quarter of a point below zero, said it will purchase government bonds for a nominal value of SKr45bn (€4.2bn) from July until December 2020. It added that its benchmark interest rate will remain at minus 0.25 per cent “for a somewhat longer period of time than was forecast in February”.

Argentina’s assets took a beating Thursday amid President Mauricio Macri’s continuing struggle to tame rising prices and revive a shrinking economy, raising prospects that his left-wing predecessor could make a comeback in this year’s presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported. The peso lost more than 5% of its value against the dollar in early trading Thursday, before regaining some ground in the afternoon.

Ireland’s top telcos Vodafone, Virgin and Three have been touted as possible buyers of BT’s €460 million Irish unit, which the UK telecoms giant is selling off as part of a global restructuring of its business, the Irish Times reported. Australian investment company AMP Capital, which manages the State-backed Irish Infrastructure Fund, was also flagged as a possible buyer while other industry sources speculated the business may end up in private equity hands. BT has so far refused to comment on reports of the sale, which has been linked to an accounting scandal at its Italian unit.

Nissan said on Wednesday that it expected its annual profit to be much lower than expected, a fresh blow to a company reeling from the arrest of its former top executive Carlos Ghosn, the International New York Times reported. The automaker told investors that its operating profit for the 2018 fiscal year, which ended in March, was expected to be 45 percent lower than the previous year, at 318 billion yen ($2.8 billion). It was Nissan’s second downward revision in two months, highlighting the difficulties it faces as it moves past the fall of Mr.