Headlines

Essar Global Fund’s decision to repay the last tranche of the secured debt at its group entities could have broader ramifications for Essar Steel, the conglomerate’s steel-making business whose future ownership would be decided by the dedicated bankruptcy court, The Economic Times reported. Some in the legal circles believe the move by Essar Group’s holding company could prompt lenders to consider the group’s last-minute offer to repay Rs 54,389 crore and wrest back the control of the debtladen Essar Steel, currently facing insolvency proceedings.

Italy’s populist leaders just blinked again. Faced with a potential bank failure that could wipe out thousands of depositors in deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s northern base, the cabinet approved state guarantees for any future bond issues by cash-strapped Banca Carige and signalled its support for a possible recapitalisation, The Irish Times reported.

Big Four firm Deloitte has reaped the benefits of Comet’s downfall for the last six years, making a total of £15m in fees, Accountancy Age reported. This is despite the investigation into Deloitte’s conduct which may end in disciplinary action. According to The Times, the professional services business has made millions over the six years that it has been dealing with Comet’s liquidation, which occurred in 2012. It charged £10.2m to be administrator and £5m to be liquidator.

Efforts to boost take up for examinerships appear to have failed, with insolvent Irish firms shying away from the process despite the chance it offers them to continue trading, Independent.ie reported. Just 3pc of insolvencies were examinerships in 2018, the same figure as in 2017, according to figures compiled by Deloitte. Deloitte said the level of examinerships was unexpectedly low. Examinership gives an insolvent firm a 100-day grace period from its creditors, within which time it can seek to come up with a scheme for survival.

Turkey’s biggest state-run bank will extend cheap loans to citizens struggling to pay off their credit-card debts, in a populist move designed to boost the economy before local elections in March, Bloomberg News reported. Citizens will be able to borrow from Ziraat Bankasi AS to pay back their card debt to banks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his party’s group meeting in parliament Tuesday. Ziraat Bank said in a statement it will offer loans for up to two years with a 1.1 percent interest rate per month, less than half the cost of the retail loan rate on its website.

The Republic is set to test the market for the first time since the European Central Bank (ECB) ended its €2.6 trillion stimulus programme last month, The Irish Times reported. Market sources said that the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) plans to raise about €3 billion through the sale of 10-year bonds as early as Wednesday. The NTMA said on Tuesday that it had hired brokers at BNP Paribas, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Davy, NatWest Markets and Societé General to manage a benchmark bond sale, without given financial details.

Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD), which lent around $170 million to Abraaj, will take stakes in the troubled private equity firm’s funds which were offered as security against the debt, three sources familiar with the matter said. Dubai-based Abraaj, worth $13.6 billion, was the largest buyout fund in the Middle East and North Africa until it collapsed last year following turmoil triggered by a row with investors, including the Gates Foundation, over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund, Reuters reported.

The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe is set to press ahead with plans to allow credit unions to hike up the cost of the loans they offer their customers, in spite of opposition from some Government ministers, The Irish Times reported. Credit unions are currently limited to charging customers an interest rate of 1 per cent a month on their personal loan, thus ensuring access to loans at a reasonable rate for customers of credit unions.

Senior Chinese leaders offered in 2016 to help bail out a Malaysian government fund at the center of a swelling, multibillion-dollar graft scandal, according to minutes from a series of previously undisclosed meetings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Chinese officials told visiting Malaysians that China would use its influence to try to get the U.S. and other countries to drop their probes of allegations that allies of then-Prime Minister Najib Razak and others plundered the fund known as 1MDB, the minutes show, The Wall Street Journal reported.

India’s central bank is open to infusing “need-based” liquidity into the financial system, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Monday ahead of a meeting with the shadow banking sector, which has been hit hard by a funding crunch, Reuters reported. Government officials have pressed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) over the past few months to ease lending and capital rules for banks and provide more liquidity to shadow banks.