Headlines

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development may start discussions with the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) over its privatisation later this year, the EBRD’s manager in the South Caucasus country said. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev ordered in 2015 the privatisation of the oil-rich country’s biggest bank after a clean-up to get rid of distressed assets resulting from poor management, Reuters reported. Two years later the state-run IBA proposed a plan to restructure $3.3 billion of its debt, later receiving approval from creditors holding 93.9 percent of the affected debt.

Bank of Ireland’s chief financial officer Andrew Keating expects Irish mortgage interest rates, which have fallen in the past five years, to start increasing again from here on – even though he believes the European Central Bank (ECB) may hold its main rate at zero until 2022, The Irish Times reported. Mr Keating said this was due to the increased amount of expensive shareholders’ money, or capital, that Irish banks have to hold in reserve against mortgages. This is required because of the scale of the mortgage arrears crisis in the Republic in the wake of the 2008 crash.

Hammerson has ramped up property sales in a bid to reduce debt after a crisis in UK retail dealt a blow to the value of its portfolio last year and resulted in a full-year loss, the Financial Times reported. The shopping centre landlord that owns European and UK malls including London’s Brent Cross, said on Monday that it had sold £570m of properties in 2018 at an average discount to net asset value of 7 per cent. It planned to sell a further £500m to £900m in 2019 despite a “tough” market.

Billionaire Anil Ambani’s telecom unit is still fighting to get approval for the sale of its airwaves, indicating that the company hasn’t given up on selling the assets outside India’s bankruptcy process, Bloomberg News reported. India’s Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal on Monday heard arguments on Reliance Communications Ltd.’s petition to allow it to sell its airwaves without past liabilities from the asset being passed to the buyer. The issue was behind the unraveling of RCom’s deal to offload its assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., owned by Anil’s older brother.

Yildiz Holding AS, a debt laden Turkish food conglomerate, plans to sell its Jacob’s cracker unit and production facilities in the U.K. this year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The owner of McVitie’s digestives and Godiva chocolates may offload the entire business or a stake to an investor, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks are confidential, Bloomberg News reported. The company is working with Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. on the sale, the people said.

Turkey’s biggest buyer of soured debt expects sales of non-performing loans to increase by 33 percent this year as banks free-up capital to cope with a surge in corporate-debt restructurings, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders will probably sell about 10 billion liras ($1.9 billion) of bad-loan portfolios this year, Hayat Varlik Yonetim AS Chief Executive Officer Hilmi Guvenal said in an interview. Banks may receive up to 500 million liras this year from the sale of NPLs to asset managers such as Hayat Varlik, he said. There are 19 distressed-loan buyers in Turkey.

State Bank of India (SBI) said reports on Monday that it was considering taking heavily indebted Jet Airways Ltd to an insolvency tribunal to recover loans were “speculative”, and no such decision had been taken, Reuters reported. The loss-making Indian airline approved a rescue deal in mid-February after months of crisis-talks to plug a 85 billion rupee ($1.2 billion) funding hole. The plan includes selling a majority stake to a consortium led by SBI, the airline’s biggest creditor, at 1 rupee.

India’s Jet Airways Ltd said late on Friday that its shareholders approved a plan to convert existing debt to equity, paving the way for the troubled company’s lenders to infuse funds and nominate directors to its board. Jet’s board last week approved a plan by lenders, led by State Bank of India, for an equity infusion, debt restructuring and the sale or sale-and-lease-back of aircraft, Reuters reported. The plan will mean the lenders will have a bigger holding than any other shareholder.

Societe Generale SA is drawing up plans to cut jobs at its investment bank and find a partner for its cash-equity business in a bid to offset increasing cost pressure from regulation, people familiar with the matter said. The bank could cut hundreds or even thousands of jobs at its global banking and investor solutions unit, including roles in support functions such as finance and human resources, one person familiar with the situation said, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential, Bloomberg News reported.

Business confidence in Germany this month slid to its lowest level since December 2014 in the latest sign of weakness in the Eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Financiers views soured on both the current economic conditions and the country’s future outlook, according to the latest business climate index published by the Ifo Institute think tank. The gauge fell more sharply than expected to 98.5 in February from a revised level of 99.3 in January. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 99.