Headlines

A group of hedge funds has hired one of the world’s most prominent sovereign debt lawyers in the hope of restructuring up to $8bn in Sudanese debt if the former pariah state’s relations with the US continue to improve, the Financial Times reported. Lee Buchheit, a senior partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb, has been brought on board to advise a clutch of London-based funds who are owners of unpaid debt that has been racking up interest since the 1980s.

Italy’s populist government is at loggerheads over how to temper its proposed spending spree, as Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte seeks to forge a new budget plan to submit to European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker next week, Bloomberg News reported. Conte will meet Juncker in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday in the latest attempt to avert possible fines on Italy, according to his office.

Investors in Mexico City’s planned airport project want a lot more from the government before they agree to its buyback offer, Bloomberg News reported. An explicit federal guarantee to honor the debt would go a long way toward resolving concerns, according to chats with more than half a dozen bondholders who asked not to be identified before any formal talks are held.

Steinhoff International Holdings NV tumbled after the global retailer said the results of a forensic investigation by auditors PwC will be delayed, Bloomberg News reported. The news comes exactly a year after the disclosure of accounting irregularities and the resignation of its CEO threw the company into crisis. The findings of the probe were postponed until the end of February, while the release of earnings for both last year and fiscal 2018 were pushed out to mid-April, the company said Thursday, dashing its efforts to publish audited results for 2017 by the end of this year.

Noble Group Ltd. is preparing for an insolvency filing after Singaporean regulators blocked a key element of its $3.5 billion debt restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is considering what’s known as a "pre-pack" administration, a procedure that allows for a debt restructuring in court through a pre-agreed plan with creditors, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are private, Bloomberg News reported.

European Union lawmakers backed new rules on Thursday that would soften requirements on the money that banks must set aside to cover potential losses from new debt that turns sour, Reuters reported. The changes adopted by lawmakers in the economic affairs committee of the European Parliament will need approval from EU governments before they become law. They represent an easing of the requirements from a deal reached in October by EU governments, which in turn had softened an earlier European Commission proposal, and met with opposition in some quarters for being too lenient.

Saad Group and bank creditors of the Saudi Arabian conglomerate have both selected advisers in a bid to try to reach a deal that could help end the kingdom’s largest and longest-running debt dispute, financial sources said on Thursday. The appointments of London-based Orchard Corporate Strategy by Saad and EY by creditors, is the latest attempt to reach an agreement that will be complicated by an ongoing auction of the company’s assets, Reuters reported.

Italian builder Astaldi is talking to Fortress and other alternative lenders to secure 70 million euros ($80 million) of immediate bridge funding in a race to stay afloat, three sources said on Thursday. Italy’s biggest infrastructure builder by sales filed for court protection from creditors in September after being hit by delays to plans to sell a bridge in Turkey, Reuters reported. “The 70 million euros is the first tranche of an overall bridge package of some 200 million euros and will cover finance needs to the end of next February,” one of the sources said.

Russia’s Sberbank, a key stakeholder in Croatian food producer and retailer Agrokor, has started to receive proposals to sell its share in the firm which is emerging from a debt crisis, an aide to Sberbank’s CEO said. Agrokor, the largest firm in the Balkans with over 50,000 staff, was put under state-run administration last year, crippled by debts built up during an ambitious expansion drive, Reuters reported. In October, a Croatian court approved a deal for the indebted Agrokor that includes a debt-for-equity swap.

Jet Airways Ltd and second-largest shareholder Etihad Airways have been holding rescue talks with bankers of the indebted Indian carrier, three people aware of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Executives of the airlines met State Bank of India officials in recent days to discuss Jet's cash flow and business plan, two of the people said, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. One said Jet has outstanding dues of about $400 million (314.29 million pounds), mainly owed to lessors and vendors.