Headlines

Greece cleared a key hurdle toward receiving around 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in cash for debt relief, as the European Commission said the country has fulfilled all reform conditions required in its latest post-bailout audit, Bloomberg News reported. In a report reviewing Greece’s record in completing the overhauls attached to further aid, the EU’s executive arm paved the way for a final decision to be taken by euro-area finance ministers when they meet in Bucharest, Romania, later this week.

Vijay Mallya, the ex-billionaire known as the “king of good times” in India, may have to prepare for a bout of relative austerity as he fights multiple lawsuits against creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Mallya’s lawyers told State Bank of India, which is among lenders owed 1.142 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, that their client is willing to cut his spending to 29,500 pounds a month, SBI’s lawyers told a London court Wednesday. He is currently spending about 18,300 pounds a week.

Zimbabwe’s lenders, which include units of Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Ecobank Ltd., appealed to the central bank to raise interest rates that have been capped at 12 percent for the past two years, saying this would increase lending in the collapsing economy, Bloomberg News reported. They also proposed that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduce an overnight rate to facilitate lending between financial institutions and the central bank, Bankers Association of Zimbabwe submissions seen by Bloomberg show.

Jet Airways India Ltd., one of the country’s biggest carriers, is on life support. A bailout plan proposed by its lenders is in limbo, more than 80 percent of its fleet is grounded, staff salaries are delayed and it’s missed payments to banks and leasing companies, Bloomberg News reported. The clock is ticking for one of the country’s most visible companies at a sensitive time, with India’s general election just weeks away. The chairman of the debt-ravaged airline has resigned and emergency funding from lenders has yet to materialize.

A series of bankruptcy filings by major private-sector bond issuers in China’s third-wealthiest province is shining a spotlight on aggressive efforts by local governments to manage unsustainable debt loads, Bloomberg News reported. Four debtors have entered bankruptcy procedures since the start of November in Dongying, a city of 2 million in the eastern province of Shandong that once thrived with a booming tire-making industry. While China sees thousands of bankruptcies each year, instances of court-led restructuring of publicly issued bonds have been rare.

You don’t adopt a modern insolvency law in the expectation of damaging the credibility of your central bank. But that’s just what has happened in India. The country’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a controversial 2018 directive from the Reserve Bank of India, which gave lenders a 180-day deadline to resolve nonperforming loans before having to refer the defaulting borrowers to a bankruptcy tribunal, a Bloomberg View reported. The verdict is a serious blow to the bank’s officials, who have been trying to tackle one of the world’s worst bad debt problems — with some early success.

Russia’s Sberbank said on Wednesday it was committed to improving the performance of Croatian food group Fortenova following reports that it is already in talks to sell its newly acquired stake, Reuters reported. Agrokor, the largest firm in the Balkans with 52,000 staff, was put under state-run administration after it was consumed by debts built up during an ambitious expansion drive. On April 1 Agrokor changed its name to Fortenova Grupa and Sberbank, formerly the biggest creditor of Agrokor, is now the biggest single shareholder with a 39.2 percent stake.

Debt-laden Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is “staring” at a 90 percent gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans of its main lending arm IL&FS Financial Services, the firm’s non-executive Chairman Uday Kotak said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. IL&FS, a major infrastructure financing and construction company, has a total debt of 910 billion rupees ($12.97 billion) and has been trying to sell its assets to repay debt after several defaults forced the government to overhaul its management.

Brazilian airline Avianca Brasil plans to split into seven units that it will auction off separately, with rivals LATAM Airlines and Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes both planning to bid for some of those parts in a bankruptcy auction, Reuters reported. The plan to split up the carrier, filed in a Brazilian court on Wednesday, is a significant departure from a previous proposal and adds fresh competition for some of the most-coveted airport slots in Brazil. But it also shuts the door on a previous offer by competitor Azul SA.

Nigeria expects to raise around 750 billion naira ($2.45 billion) from tax defaulters by the end of the first half of this year, the country’s tax chief said on Tuesday. The OPEC member, which has Africa’s largest economy, in 2017 emerged from a recession brought on by low oil prices and authorities have in the last few years sought to boost non-oil revenues, Reuters reported. Crude sales make up two-thirds of national revenue.