Headlines

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., which sent a shock through Indian financial markets last year when it defaulted on debt, faces a much-awaited coupon payment due Friday on overseas bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called dim sum bonds, or offshore yuan-denominated bonds, are guaranteed by IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd., a unit of IL&FS which has already defaulted on interest payments due on five rupee-denominated bonds, according to a Dec. 31 filing.

If you’re looking for one of the worst ideas in contemporary banking, look no further than Germany. The mooted merger between Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG would make a mockery of any notion that EU governments are serious about ending the “too big to fail” problem, a Bloomberg View reported. It would also turn back the clock on a guiding principle of European regulation over the past decade: The promotion of a “banking union,” where risks are shared widely across the continent on the basis of jointly decided rules.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode to power five years ago on his business friendly credentials and the promise of generating millions of jobs. Now an airline is on the verge of collapse, bringing Modi’s image under attack just months before national elections, Bloomberg News reported. Struggling in a competitive market where basic air fares can get as low as 2 cents, Jet Airways India Ltd., the country’s second-biggest airline, has piled on $1.1 billion in debt and failed to pay loans and salaries.

Qatar said on Monday it plans to buy $500 million of Lebanese government bonds to help support one of the world’s most indebted countries, Bloomberg News reported. Eurobonds rallied by the most since September. Lebanon’s struggling economy needs a cash infusion to reassure bond holders still reeling from mixed remarks by officials about the possibility of debt restructuring this month.

Errant debtors are forever looking for ways to undermine creditor protection; but when lenders themselves start making a mockery of a fledgling insolvency law, nobody can save it, a Bloomberg View reported. That’s where India’s two-year-old bankruptcy regime is today, brought to the brink of irrelevance by the strain of resolving its most high-profile case: Essar Steel India Ltd. The billionaire Ruia brothers have used every trick in the book to ensure their prized asset stays in the family, despite owing financial creditors 508 billion rupees ($6.3 billion) in unpaid dues.

The 2007 takeover of the Dutch parts of Yukos Oil by Russian state oil company Rosneft’s former subsidiary Promneftstroy was illegal, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upholding an earlier lower appeals court ruling. Yukos Oil went bankrupt in 2006 after its former chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, fell out with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Russian government began demanding billions in back taxes, Reuters reported. Most of Yukos’ assets were absorbed by the Kremlin’s flagship oil producer Rosneft, and its former owners have for years been trying to recover their possessions.

Avianca Brasil’s battle with its aircraft leasing firms intensified on Friday after Brazil’s aviation regulator said it would no longer ground 10 of the struggling carrier’s planes and another lessor renewed its effort to repossess 10 others, Reuters reported. Aircastle Ltd and General Electric Co’s GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) unit, among other lessors, have been trying to repossess planes from Brazil’s fourth largest airline since it fell behind on lease payments, but their efforts were hampered when Avianca Brasil filed for bankruptcy protection in December.

Brazil’s recent change of government has further delayed the long-awaited finalization of LyondellBasell Industries NV’s plan to buy Brazilian petrochemical company Braskem SA, three sources with knowledge of the matter said this week, Reuters reported. Netherlands-based LyondellBasell first said it had entered into exclusive talks to acquire control of Braskem from Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA in June. However, the deal’s price depends on a long-term naphtha supply contract with state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA, which also owns shares in Braskem.

A Scottish shopping centre owned by a global asset manager is up for auction with a starting price of £1, in the latest sign of the downturn in the retail property market, the Financial Times reported. The Postings centre in Kirkcaldy, owned by a pension fund run by Columbia Threadneedle Investments, is being auctioned through Allsop with a reserve price of £1 — implying a gross initial yield of 15.6m per cent, according to the auctioneer’s website. The sale comes as a crisis on the high street begins to eat into retail property values.

Shares in Jiayuan International, a Chinese property developer, collapsed in late trading in Hong Kong on Thursday, underlining investors’ unease over a sector that is staggering under vast debts just as the world’s second-biggest economy slows. Analysts said that the stock, which closed down 81 per cent after a chaotic day’s trading that wiped more than $3bn from its market capitalisation, was engulfed by concern that Jiayuan would struggle to repay a $350m bond that was due this week.