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Euro zone banks have a large shortfall in their loss-absorbing buffers and now face tougher market conditions for building them up due to higher volatility and widening spreads in sovereign yields, the bloc’s banking watchdogs said on Monday. Under international and EU banking rules, large banks must issue special loss-absorbing debt known as TLAC and MREL that can be converted into capital if a crisis burns through their core capital buffer, Reuters reported.
India’s Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) said the country’s appellate company law tribunal has passed an interim order granting a moratorium on all creditor actions against the company and its units, providing some relief to the debt-laden firm, Reuters reported. The move will preserve the value of the group’s assets and also help the new IL&FS board in its effort to evaluate and prepare a resolution plan, IL&FS said in a statement on Monday.
Italy’s government late Monday approved a draft budget law for next year, confirming a set of expansionary measures that could lead to a fast-rising deficit and a conflict with the European Union, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government, a coalition of the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement and the far-right League, has rattled financial markets in the past month with its budget plans, with investors demanding significantly higher interest rates to buy the country’s bonds. The full draft budget law will be sent to the Italian parliament by Saturday.
KKR & Co is seeking to acquire assets from stressed Indian shadow lenders, as it tries to take advantage of the market disruption after a rare money market default by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. The private equity firm’s two Indian credit units may spend as much as 20 billion rupees ($270 million) combined to purchase portfolios from local non-banking finance companies, Sanjay Nayar, KKR’s India chief executive officer, said in an phone interview Friday. KKR is also seeking outright acquisitions of Indian non-bank lenders and
Egypt is considering issuing bonds in currencies other than the euro and the U.S. dollar after launching a roadshow in Asia, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait told Reuters on Saturday, as the government steps up efforts to improve its debt structure, The New York Times reported on a Reuters story.
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Former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley gave evidence for a second day at Auckland High Court rejecting claims that Mainzeal, a construction company she chaired, was insolvent as early as 2008, Stuff.co.nz reported. Mainzeal was put into receivership in early February 2013, but liquidators Andrew Bethell and Brian Mayo-Smith of BDO allege the company traded while insolvent, and are suing some of its former directors, including Shipley, for up to $75 million in damages to repay Mainzeal's creditors. Shipley betrayed no nerves while giving ev
The bankruptcy court has decided to entertain a plea by Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot seeking to consolidate separate insolvency proceedings initiated by lenders led by State Bank of India against 15 of his companies under a single court, the Economic Times reported. National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) principal bench in New Delhi on Thursday admitted Dhoot’s plea and sought a reply from SBI by October 24. The country’s top bank and other lenders had filed separate proceedings against Videocon companies in different courts during June-September to recover Rs 2
The Irish Banking Culture Board being set up by lenders in the wake of the tracker mortgage scandal is a “self-regulatory” body that will not work unless the Central Bank, unions and consumer groups also have stakes, the Financial Services Union (FSU) has said, the Irish Times reported. “If the banks were serious about culture change, rather than setting up a self-regulatory body, they would support the FSU’s call for a stakeholder-led culture board on banking with the equal participation of management, the Central Bank, FSU and consumer groups,” said Gareth Murphy, the union’
A major eurozone country has elected new leadership on promises to loosen the purse strings in defiance of bond markets, Berlin and bureaucrats in Brussels. The message to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader, is uncompromising: “People have made a choice which envisages a renegotiation of the fiscal treaty. It’s not Germany that decides for the whole of Europe.” These are not the words of Italy’s populist leaders preparing to send a rule-breaking budget to Brussels, the Financial Times reported.