Headlines

Just days after panic swept through Argentine financial markets, some investors see pockets of opportunity but they also face the difficulty of trading in an environment distinguished by the evaporation of price liquidity, the Financial Times reported. Against this backdrop even small trades can move market prices sharply, making any substantial changes to a portfolio difficult to implement.

Bolton Wanderers have avoided administration after agreeing a deal to pay off their main creditor BluMarble Capital Ltd, club owner Ken Anderson said on Wednesday. Anderson had warned on Monday that the Championship outfit was facing the prospect of insolvency and a points penalty after an initial offer to repay the financial company was turned down, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. However, Anderson confirmed an agreement was reached and the club now has one of the lowest debt positions in the second division.

Hong Kong-based private-equity firm Baring Private Equity Asia has agreed to invest roughly half a billion dollars in Pioneer Corp., likely becoming the controlling shareholder, in another example of overseas investors taking a role in restructuring venerable Japanese brands, The Wall Street Journal reported. Pioneer, a struggling maker of car audio and navigation equipment, is trying to compete in the quickly changing market for internet-connected vehicles with autonomous-driving functions. In June, a group led by U.S.

Two of the most storied names in German department stores are combining in a deal orchestrated by an Austrian real estate billionaire, highlighting the pressures facing traditional retailers amid the rise of Amazon.com Inc. Karstadt, controlled by Rene Benko’s Signa Holding GmbH, agreed to take over Galeria Kaufhof, owned by Saks Fifth Avenue parent Hudson’s Bay Co., creating a retail company with 5.4 billion euros ($6.3 billion) in revenue, Bloomberg News reported. Benko has long wanted to merge the brands, having had an overture rejected as recently as February.

It is said that generals often plan to fight the last war. Ten years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, many experts fear a new financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. In fact, the global financial system is much more robust than before 2008, but the global economy is still threatened by excessive debt. The financial crisis began because of dangerous features within the financial system itself. Massively leveraged investment banks engaged in socially useless trading of huge volumes of complex credit securities and derivatives.

Greece will meet primary surplus targets of 3.5 percent of GDP until 2022 as required by its creditors, but the policies to achieve that will be determined by the Greek government, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told the European Parliament on Tuesday. Greece exited the euro zone's bailout programme, under which it received cheap loans in exchange for reforms, in August after eight years of economic restructuring that was necessary when Athens lost market access in 2010 because of its huge debts, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Britain's aerospace trade body ADS has written to the European Commission for the second time in four months to urge it once again to allow British and European airline regulators to begin technical planning for Brexit. Aviation is one sector that could be most severely impacted by Brexit, as there is no default fallback option for the industry if there is no agreement on future relations after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

ING‘s chief financial officer has resigned after being singled out as responsible for the compliance failings that allowed companies to launder hundreds of millions of euros and pay bribes. Koos Timmermans, a 22-year veteran of ING, is the most senior executive to leave the Dutch bank over the money laundering affair, for which it has agreed to pay a record €775m in penalties to the country’s public prosecutor, the Financial Times reported.

British department store retailer Debenhams said on Tuesday that while major store closures were an option, the company was not actively pursuing this route, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Shares in Debenhams slumped on Monday after news that the remit of adviser KPMG had been widened to include consideration of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which allows retailers to avoid insolvency or administration by offloading unwanted stores and securing reduced rents on others.

Shareholders of loss-making Dubai construction company Drake & Scull will meet on Sept. 27 to decide whether to dissolve the company, Drake & Scull announced on Wednesday. The company, which posted a second-quarter net loss of 181.1 million dirhams ($49.3 million) compared to a year-earlier loss of 182.7 million dirhams, said it was calling a general assembly under an article of United Arab Emirates company law, Reuters reported. The law requires companies to vote on whether they should continue operating if their accumulated losses have reached half of their issued share capital.