Headlines

Dire warnings about the risks from China’s debt build-up have existed for nearly a decade though the crisis that many expect has yet to arrive. But with the world’s second-biggest economy growing at its weakest pace since 1990 and US tariffs adding pressure, investors are still nervous, the Financial Times reported. “Most countries that permit rapid credit expansions face financial crises or a sharp slowdown in the economy as risks in the financial system emerge,” says Logan Wright, director of China markets research at research provider Rhodium Group.

African Bank Holdings Ltd. is joining the rush into digital banking to fail-proof the business and provide an exit for shareholders that resurrected the South African lender from its collapsed former parent, Bloomberg News reported. The firm’s unusual owners, which includes the South African central bank and six of the nation’s largest lenders, stepped in to save it with an equity injection when African Bank Investments Ltd. went into administration five years ago.

China’s most prominent development bank has been noticeably low-profile lately, a Bloomberg View reported. For the last decade, the 16 trillion yuan ($2.39 trillion) China Development Bank, and its less-muscular cousins Agricultural Development Bank of China Ltd. and Export-Import Bank of China, were on the forefront of every major stimulus push. In 2008, CDB financed the 4 trillion yuan spending pledge by the Ministry of Finance, its former controlling shareholder.

Cracks are showing in Southeast Asia’s credit markets as struggling companies in troubled industries seek to repair their balance sheets, according to Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP, which manages the largest network of corporate lawyers in the region, Bloomberg News reported. The law firm, which has handled local units of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and MF Global Inc. in their bankruptcy cases, said a slowing Chinese economy and more risk aversion among alternative capital providers will make it more challenging for some companies to meet maturing obligations.

British Prime Minister Theresa May would find it difficult to take Britain out of the European Union without a Brexit divorce deal after parliament expressed a clear view that it is opposed to this outcome, her spokesman said on Monday. Earlier May told parliament “Unless this House agrees to it, no deal will not happen”, prompting some lawmakers to say she had ruled out a ‘no deal’ exit, Reuters reported.

Martin Kingston, who on April 1 steps down as chief executive officer of Rothschild & Co.’s South African unit after 13 years, wants to help revive the country’s beleaguered state-owned companies…South Africa’s state-owned companies became beset by skills shortages, unsustainable debt and bloated work forces during the nine-year tenure of former president Jacob Zuma, which ended in February last year, Bloomberg News reported. The country suffers regular power outages, a dysfunctional commuter train system and almost daily corruption scandals related to the firms.

Malaysian billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s Bumi Armada Bhd. is nearing an agreement for a loan of around $500 million, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a deal that will give the embattled energy firm more time to restructure, Bloomberg News reported. Banks are finalizing details of a five-year credit facility, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The funds will be used to refinance existing debt that matures in May and for working capital, one of the people said.

The cost of insuring exposure to Turkey’s sovereign debt soared to a six-month high on Monday, after the country’s financial regulators opened probes into JP Morgan and other banks accusing them of providing misinformation that stoked FX volatility, Reuters reported. Turkey 5-year credit default swaps (CDS) jumped by 27 basis points (bps) to 426 bpd - levels last seen in September in the wake of the summer selloff, data from IHS Markit showed.

Cash-strapped Jet Airways Ltd on Monday took major steps towards closing a rescue deal with its lenders, with Chairman Naresh Goyal and his wife stepping down from the airline’s board, Reuters reported. Laden with debt of more than $1 billion and faced with an evaporating market value, Jet is banking on a bailout by its lenders as it became unable to pay banks, suppliers, pilots and lessors - several of whom have started terminating leases with the carrier.

Rafal Lis almost single-handedly created Poland’s private-debt market. In seven years, he built his company, CVI Dom Maklerski sp. z o.o., into a 5.9 billion zloty ($1.6 billion) boutique asset manager. Then, late last year, he feared it would all come crashing down, Bloomberg News reported. The worst day, he says, was Nov. 20. “My knees buckled as I saw the redemption requests,” Lis recalls in an interview at CVI’s Warsaw headquarters.