Headlines

China is helping Africa develop, not pile up debt, a top Chinese official said on Tuesday, as the government pushes back against criticism it is loading the continent with an unsustainable burden during a major summit in Beijing. President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion to African nations at Monday's opening of a China-Africa forum on cooperation, matching the size of funds offered at the last summit in Johannesburg in 2015, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

More than 10 private-equity firms including Canadian real-estate firm Brookfield Asset Management have emerged as contenders to buy some or all of the funds managed by Dubai private-equity firm Abraaj Group, according to an email sent to investors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Thomas Barrack’s Colony Capital Inc. has also re-entered the race after an earlier deal to buy four of Abraaj’s funds fell through after failing to secure sufficient investor support…The Wall Street Journal reported. Interested parties have until Sept.

In 2006, three business luminaries huddled in Belgrade for a meeting so veiled in secrecy that it acquired a mystical code name: Hercules. The three titans wanted to test their strength by creating a giant retail company to dominate across the former Yugoslavia, Bloomberg News reported. The executives -- Ivica Todoric of Croatia’s Agrokor d.d., Zoran Jankovic of Slovenia’s Mercator Poslovni Sistem and Miroslav Miskovic of Serbia’s Delta Holding -- haggled for six hours before giving up, unable to agree on ownership stakes. It was a lucky escape for two of them.

Homebase creditors have approved a proposal to close 42 stores, putting 1,500 jobs at risk but giving the British home improvement retailer a lifeline from the brink of collapse, the company said on Friday. The proposed closures are further evidence of the deteriorating outlook for British retail sector, Reuters reported. They are part of a so-called Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) restructuring, allowing the business to avoid insolvency or administration. Homebase said the restructuring plan, proposed this month, was approved by 95.92 percent of the company’s creditors.

Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. is considering a breakup plan as part of a restructuring to help trim its 420 billion rupee ($6 billion) debt pile and boost investor confidence in a company that was once India’s biggest steelmaker by market value, Bloomberg News reported. The New Delhi-based company is looking at splitting its steel, power and international businesses into three separate entities, Chairman Naveen Jindal said in an interview. Any such plan would need the approval of lenders, regulators and the board, he said.

The Turkish lira is due for a reality check on Monday. August inflation data will probably show another big jump, this time to an annual rate of more than 17 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Ouch. The principal cause of the lira’s weakness has been the central bank's refusal to put interest rates high enough to contain runaway consumer prices, a Bloomberg View reported. So, on Monday, everyone will get a nice reminder that policy makers haven’t acted quickly enough to control inflation. They’ll also get a sense of where price gains are headed, and here the picture looks grim.

A currency crisis is driving Argentina deeper into a recession. The peso is down more than 50 percent so far this year, competing in a race-to-the-bottom with the Turkish lira as the worst-performing currency in emerging markets, Bloomberg News reported. An emergency measure by the central bank, hiking interest rates to 60 percent from 45 percent, didn’t stop the peso’s plunge. Nor has selling reserves. Analysts say the lack of a clear, consistent strategy in South America’s second-largest nation is causing investors and the public to lose faith in the government of President Mauricio Macri.

Europe’s failure to reform out-dated pension systems has created a “ticking time bomb” for the region’s public finances, accord to HSBC Holdings Plc, Bloomberg News reported. Those nations with the highest debt levels are the most at risk, while political U-turns on recent reforms threaten to compound the situation, the London-based bank said. Italy could see its borrowings rise to 150 percent of economic output by 2040, even without the populist government’s proposed rollbacks.

Wonga co-founder Errol Damelin used to tell critics that “we are the good guys”, who would reach a $1bn Nasdaq listing by disrupting traditional banks that treated customers unfairly, the Financial Times reported. But when the company fell into administration on Thursday — having never made it to IPO — many observers were celebrating its demise. The company is the most prominent among hundreds of payday lenders that have gone out of business in the UK since the Financial Conduct Authority enforced a cap on charges in 2015.

Activity in UK factories expanded at the slowest rate in more than two years during August as weaker global growth led to the first fall in export orders since 2016, a survey of executives said on Monday. The monthly IHS Markit purchasing manufacturers index fell to 52.8 in August compared with 53.8 in July, anything above 50 is said to indicate an expansion while anything below means a contraction, the Financial Times reported. This was the survey’s lowest reading for 25 months. Analysts had expected the pace of growth in the sector to remain the same as the previous month.