Headlines

Bank of India Ltd aims to return to profit in the January-March quarter as it focuses on reducing bad loans, its chief executive said on Monday, after the state-run lender logged its biggest quarterly loss since at least 2005, Reuters reported. A spike in bad loan provisions dragged the bank to a net loss here of 47.38 billion rupees ($666.50 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31. In the same period the year before, it registered a loss of 23.41 billion rupees.

Brazil's deadly tailings dam collapse is likely to complicate a settlement for a similar disaster less than four years ago at the Samarco iron ore mine, owned jointly by Vale SA and BHP Group, investors said on Tuesday. Vale and BHP have been aiming to restart the mine as early as 2020 following a dam failure in 2015 that killed 19 people and buried a village, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A second deadly dam burst at a Vale mine on Friday killed 65 people and there are fears the death toll could soar into the hundreds.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s team of advisers is rushing to take control of the country’s main foreign asset, U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum, before a potential bond default that could leave half the company in creditors’ hands, sources close to the talks told Reuters on Monday.

Investors are calling on ratings agencies to downgrade leveraged loans with overly aggressive documentation, as weak lender protection continues to cause concern, Reuters reported. Moody’s European covenant quality indicator hit a record low in the fourth quarter of 3.83, which is the lowest figure since the ratings agency established the monitor in 2012. The statistic focuses on high-yield bonds but analysts say loans are in a similar state. Covenant-lite loans, which offer little protection for lenders, have become established as the market norm.

Business confidence among Germany’s exporters has taken a dive in the past year as any “ray of hope” even a month ago in the carmaking industry has been dashed, figures from an influential research house showed. Export expectations in manufacturing fell to 5.9 points in January, from 19.9 a year ago, the Financial Times reported. The index has more than halved in the past two months, the Ifo Institute’s survey revealed on Monday. In November expectations were at 12.2. “The new year is marked by worries among German manufacturers,” said the report.

Questions have emerged over whether one of Indonesia’s wealthiest families has in effect dragged itself into court to prevent a foreign creditor from recovering a loan — a case experts say threatens the credibility of the country’s bankruptcy laws, the Financial Times reported. The case against a subsidiary of Lippo group, which is controlled by Indonesia’s Riady family, comes at a time when defaults are rising in the country. It is expected to spark concerns over powerful local conglomerates forcing out foreign creditors through bankruptcy proceedings.

German airlines group Lufthansa has held talks to take a majority stake in ailing Italian carrier Alitalia and would be interested in a full takeover in the long run, Lufthansa board member Harry Hohmeister said on Monday, Reuters reported. Alitalia, which was put under special administration in 2017, would remain operationally independent within the Lufthansa group, with its own brand, he said. Lufthansa has been a key player in hectic M&A activity in the industry, snapping up Brussels Airlines and parts of insolvent Air Berlin in 2017 to expand in the budget market.

The Kazakh authorities are urgently looking for a bank to take over no. 2 lender Tsesnabank as they believe it needs new financing to prevent a collapse, three sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters. Officials from the government and central bank have approached at least three other Kazakh banks and hope to tie up a deal in February, the sources said. They are offering financial incentives for any bank prepared to take it over, Reuters reported.

Etihad Airways has appointed turnaround specialist Alvarez & Marsal to conduct due diligence on Jet Airways Ltd as it weighs bailing out the cash-strapped Indian carrier, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Executives from Alvarez & Marsal are camped in Jet Airways’ offices in Mumbai and are taking stock of the airline’s operations and looking into its financial health and records, one of the sources said, Reuters reported.

When Ofo launched in Beijing in 2015, it had seemingly everything going for it: a brilliant idea, a stash of cash and impeccable Communist party connections. But just four years later, the bike-sharing service has been reduced to empty offices, graveyards of disused bright yellow bikes and virtual queues of disenchanted customers demanding their deposits back, the Financial Times reported. Venerable investors, including tech giant Alibaba, are braced for writedowns and the company’s founder, Dai Wei, has warned that bankruptcy is on the horizon.