Headlines

After sending two pesky central bank governors packing in a little over two years, Indian bureaucrats have turned their attention to unwinding the monetary authority’s autonomy, a Bloomberg View reported. Their first move, unveiled Thursday, is an innocuous – even laudable – infusion of 410 billion rupees ($5.9 billion) into troubled state-run lenders, bumping up this fiscal year’s outlay for bank recapitalization by 63 percent to 1.06 trillion rupees. The fresh capital partially replaces a shortfall in the  2.11 trillion rupee bank recap announced in October last year.

A group of Turkey’s major banks took control of Turk Telekom AS, the nation’s largest phone company, setting it up for a likely sale after previous owner Otas defaulted on a multi-billion-dollar loan, Bloomberg News reported. Akbank TAS will hold 35.6 percent of the special purpose vehicle set up to take on Otas’s 55 percent controlling stake, Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS will have 22.1 percent of that entity, and Turkiye Is Bankasi AS’s share is 11.6 percent, according to filings Saturday.

The Asian dollar bond market is finishing its worst year since 2013. But strong fundamentals in many sectors and expectations for support from policy makers next year mean there are pockets of value, more investors are saying. Debt buyers are closely watching for any additional credit easing in China, which could reduce funding pressures for some borrowers from the nation, the biggest issuer of the securities, Bloomberg News reported. Average yield premiums on Asian U.S. currency high-yield bonds rose last month to the highest since March 2016, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index.

Edcon Holdings Ltd. said lenders extended waivers to give the debt-laden South African retailer time to implement a recapitalization plan that was approved by its board, Bloomberg News reported. “The restructuring and recapitalization of Edcon has passed its next hurdle,” Chief Executive Officer Grant Pattison said in an emailed statement on Friday.

People who make a living guiding others through bankruptcy in Canada say they’ve never been busier, Bloomberg News reported. Record debt burdens, rising borrowing costs and, in some cases, bigger payday loans are driving many Canadians to seek relief, according to several licensed insolvency trustees who spoke to Bloomberg. They say November was their busiest on record, and December -- typically a slow time of year in the insolvency trade -- hasn’t let up.

Markets, to paraphrase Nobel prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling, often forget that they keep forgetting. That’s especially true when it comes to the intractable challenges posed by global debt, Bloomberg News reported. Since 2008, governments around the world have looked for relatively painless ways to lower high debt levels, a central cause of the last crisis. Cutting interest rates to zero or below made borrowing easier to service. Quantitative easing and central bank support made it easier to buy debt.

Interserve said it had reached a deal with its lenders to defer a debt payment due early next year and was considering handing them its profitable building materials business RMDK as it works to avert a Carillion-style collapse, Reuters reported. “Interserve continues to be in constructive discussions with its lenders, who are fully supportive of Interserve’s business plan and management team,” the British construction and services company said in a statement on Friday.

A total of 10 former employees of Danske Bank A/S in Estonia were apprehended over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. Estonian prosecutors suspect they deliberately helped criminals from the former Soviet Union launder money, for personal gain. In Denmark, where Danske is the biggest bank, the government made clear it’s not in favor of clemency. “It’s very important to come down hard on this case,” Danish Business Minister Rasmus Jarlov told Bloomberg.

Ofo, the Alibaba-backed bike-sharing service, has “immense” cash flow problems and has considered applying for bankruptcy, according to the company’s founder, the Financial Times reported. Dockless bike-sharing companies, including Ofo and its main rival Mobike, have rolled out more than 20 million bikes in the past two years in China and abroad. With its yellow dockless bikes, Ofo — which has raised more than $2.2bn since it was founded in 2014 — exemplified the Chinese start-up model of growing quickly by raising money and burning through cash.

Interserve Plc has merged two of its businesses to simplify its organization, the British support services and construction firm said on Wednesday, days after starting rescue talks with creditors, Reuters reported. The company said it combined its citizen services division, which handles everything from rehabilitation of low-risk offenders to education and workplace training and nursing care, with its support services unit that manages outsourced facilities. The support services unit is managed directly by Interserve CEO Debbie White.