Headlines
Resources Per Region
Etihad Airways and Abu Dhabi's Department of Finance are likely to reject calls for a meeting with disgruntled bond investors in the belief that their complaints have no legal merit, sources close to the matter told Reuters. In 2015 and 2016 Etihad issued $1.2 billion in bonds in a partnership with airlines it partly owned at the time, including Alitalia and Air Berlin, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The bonds are now in default because the European airlines, which are now insolvent, have not honoured their part of the obligations.
Read more
Restructured foreign currency loans in Turkey will be converted to Turkish lira at the central bank exchange rate in force on the day of restructure, a presidential decree said on Thursday, a move that could damage banks if the lira continues to fall against the dollar, Reuters reported. The decree published in the Official Gazette allowed the day’s lira rate to be used in companies’ restructuring of forex loans as private sector debt continues to grow.
Read more
The International Monetary Fund launched formal bailout talks with Pakistan on Thursday, and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said she would require “absolute transparency” of Pakistan’s debts, including those owed to China, Reuters reported. She said such disclosures were necessary to determine the debt sustainability of countries seeking IMF loans. The requirements are likely to shine a spotlight on the extent, composition and terms of Pakistan’s debts to China for infrastructure projects as part of Beijing’s massive Belt and Road building program.
China plans to increase the number of companies it deems systemically important financial institutions, people familiar with the matter said, a sign that policy makers are stepping up crisis-prevention efforts as the nation’s debt burden swells to unprecedented levels, Bloomberg News reported. Regulators led by China’s central bank will initially shortlist at least 50 of the country’s largest lenders, insurers and brokerages as possible SIFIs, said the people, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
Read more
Debt stress in Zambia is set to escalate next year as the burden of hefty borrowings from China starts to weigh, throwing the copper-exporting African nation into a struggle to avoid default on its hard currency debt, analysts said. Opinions diverge on whether default can be evaded, partly because certain factors are subject to both market fluctuations and political uncertainties, the Financial Times reported.
Read more
The Bank of England and the financial services industry on Tuesday pressed the EU to urgently tackle legal uncertainty surrounding vast amounts of derivatives because of Brexit, the Financial Times reported. Calling for “timely action” by EU authorities, the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee said if the UK crashed out of the bloc without a withdrawal agreement it risked rendering void £41tn of derivatives.
Read more
A recurrent debate since the eurocrisis has been whether stability tools should share risk among Member States or, instead, segregate risks within individual countries. As the eurozone discusses — and postpones — genuine risk-sharing measures, such as European deposit insurance, it’s important to look back at when risks were shared, and who actually benefited. The common narrative is that rescue programs have helped deeply troubled countries avoid sovereign bankruptcy or widespread bank failures, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.
Read more
Greece’s central bank governor has blamed Italy’s market turmoil for a drop in the share prices of Greek banks, saying that the falls “are not related to the soundness of Greek banks”. Italian government bonds have seen a fresh sell-off in recent days, as investors mull the growing likelihood that Rome will face-off against Brussels over a budget-busting spending plan, the Financial Times reported. In the past two weeks the yield on 10-year Italian debt has risen by 80 basis points, to hit 3.712 per cent — its highest level since early 2014.
Read more
South Korea’s Hyundai Merchant Marine is getting another $5 billion in state funding to finance a series of new orders for megaships as the company tries to compete with bigger Asian and European rivals in a difficult container shipping market. HMM, the country’s de facto flag carrier after the collapse of Hanjin Shipping Co. in 2016, will spend $2.8 billion to buy 20 large container vessels from South Korean shipbuilders, The Wall Street Journal reported. The rest of the money will likely be used to buy container terminals, according to people involved in the matter.
Read more
Chinese corporate bond defaults will likely continue to rise next year due to daunting refinancing costs, with defaults expected to concentrate on the country’s cash-starved private sector, Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Availability of credit for firms to refinance their borrowings remains tight despite the central bank’s monetary policy easing steps, as commercial banks continue to be cautious in lending to private companies and non-strategic, financially wobbly state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Fitch said.
Read more