Headlines

Lebanon’s finance ministry and central bank have come up with a new plan to finance the debt-burdened country, the Financial Times reported. But their method is set to increase its cost of financing even further, as the government starts issuing local currency debt at market rates — higher than the rates treasury bills are currently issued at — in order to attract local banks.

Credit Suisse’s plans to buy back as much as SFr3bn of shares and modestly increase its dividend received a lukewarm reception from analysts and investors, who were pushing for more capital to be returned after a sharp fall in the stock, the Financial Times reported. The Swiss bank said it expected to repurchase SFr1bn ($1bn) in each of the next two years and would attempt to buy back a further SFr1bn if market conditions allow, while increasing the dividend by 5 per cent a year.

Britons may not get a second referendum on European Union membership, but tonight’s vote of confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May among Conservative lawmakers is a proxy for it: The elected representatives of a party whose supporters chose overwhelmingly to leave the EU will fight over which vision of Brexit makes more sense. Nearly all want to honor the result of the 2016 referendum; they just disagree over how to do that.

Amid rising fears that the South African economy is stuck with low growth, major financial institutions along with the South African National Treasury have cut their 2018 growth forecasts for Africa’s most industrialised economy, the Financial Times reported. One of numerous issues the government is facing is the financial health of Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned monopoly power utility company. The company’s semi-annual results announced on November 28 highlight just how daunting this issue is.

Default risk for Chinese companies has climbed to the highest in 13 years as Beijing seeks to rein in its post-crisis construction boom, according to Moody’s Analytics. The research group’s measure of expected default frequency has risen above early-warning levels for about 25 percent of corporate borrowers, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s Analytics, a separate entity from the ratings agency, uses the gauge to isolate companies and sectors that merit further investigation for financial distress.

Mutual funds in India can separate distressed and illiquid assets in their portfolios to deal with any potential credit crisis, the market regulator said on Wednesday. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was in talks with the industry to allay fears of contagion effect on mutual funds due to a liquidity crisis faced by the country’s non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), its chief had said last week, Reuters reported.

Italy’s rail company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) is working to get airlines easyJet or Delta involved in the rescue of ailing carrier Alitalia, Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio was quoted as saying by union sources on Wednesday. Last month state-appointed commissioners running Alitalia accepted a binding purchase offer by FS, Reuters reported. The flagship airline had been put on sale after being in special administration since early last year.

A Brazilian bankruptcy judge late on Tuesday granted a request by the country’s fourth-largest airline, Avianca Brasil, to suspend lawsuits seeking repossession of at least 14 of its aircraft, according to a court document, Reuters reported. Avianca Brasil filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, after aircraft lessors sued and won initial victories in seeking to repossess the planes. The airline has 494 million reais ($129 million) in debt, according to a court filing that is under seal but was seen by Reuters.

Brazil’s fourth-largest airline, Avianca Brasil, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, saying its operations had been threatened by potential repossession of aircraft, which could prevent the carrier from continuing to operate, Reuters reported. The unlisted airline said in its bankruptcy filing that leasing companies seeking to take back some 30 percent of its all-Airbus fleet threatened its ability to fly some 77,000 passengers in December.

Venezuela is facing the possible unraveling of a pair of billion-dollar settlements aimed at protecting the cash-strapped country’s U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum Corp from seizure by creditors. A lawyer for Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp said on Tuesday Venezuela had breached the $1.4 billion November agreement that resolved a long-running fight over an expropriated gold mine. Separately, Venezuela’s $1.3 billion settlement in October with Rusoro Mining of Vancouver, also over expropriated mining assets, has been upended by U.S.