Headlines

After nine years of unprecedented peacetime economic hardship, Greece exits its IMF bailout programme. So ends a series of three bailouts organised by the so-called troika of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, Neos Kosmos reported. A total of €336 billion was lent to Greece in the wake of the financial crisis, to stop it defaulting on its national debt, with approximately €300 billion used so far. What’s more, over 90 percent of the funds were not directed toward investment projects, but went on servicing Greece’s national debt.

China’s consumer finance industry is sagging under an intensifying campaign of regulation, Bloomberg News reported. That could be a problem for an economy that’s relying on domestic demand to sustain growth amid the trade war with the U.S. The government has started a fresh round of checks on thousands of peer-to-peer lending sites, Bloomberg News reported last week. Meanwhile, shares of U.S.-listed cash-loan provider Qudian Inc. fell 12 percent on Friday after a separate Bloomberg report that it would lose access to customers through Ant Financial’s Alipay app.

Formula One owner Liberty Media could be left with an unexpected bill of $67.3 million driven by a dispute over the recent rescue of the Force India racing team. Force India crashed into administration, the British equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, at the end of July after its owners got into financial difficulty, Forbes reported. Last week the team’s assets were sold to a new vehicle called Racing Point which is led by Lawrence Stroll, the tycoon who helped to develop the Tommy Hilfiger fashion brand.

Directors who have dissolved companies to avoid paying staff or pensions could be fined or disqualified for the first time, the government has announced. In a package of reforms announced today, struggling companies will be given more time to explore rescue options while shareholders will be given more powers to hold boardrooms to account, the Financial Times reported. Greg Clark, business secretary, launched a consultation into corporate governance and insolvency in March, in the wake of what it called “recent corporate governance failures”.

Singapore-listed Noble Group Ltd faces a make-or-break shareholders’ meeting on Monday as investors vote on a $3.5 billion debt restructuring plan that its creditors and board say is vital to prevent insolvency, Reuters reported. The company, once a global commodity trader with ambitions to rival Glencore or Vitol, has shrunk to an Asian-centric business focused on coal and freight trading after it slashed hundreds of jobs and sold prized assets to cut debt.

A proposed deal for an Irish business family to buy discount retailer Poundworld out of administration in the United Kingdom has collapsed in acrimony, The Irish Times reported. Deloitte, administrators to the chain in the UK, said that the Dublin-based Henderson family had agreed a “deal in principle” earlier this month to buy a tranche of stores in an eleventh hour agreement before they were shuttered.

China is tightening its clampdown on cryptocurrencies, nearly a year after the government imposed a wide-ranging ban on local exchanges and fundraising for digital currencies, The Wall Street Journal reported. Financial officials in an eastern district of Beijing issued a notice last week to stores, hotels and offices urging them not to host any cryptocurrency-related speeches, events or activities.

Argentine police raided two homes of ex-President Cristina Kirchner, in the latest graft probe involving a former Latin American president as a sweeping anticorruption movement takes hold in the region, The Wall Street Journal reported. The search on Thursday of Mrs. Kirchner’s Buenos Aires apartment and a home in the southern Patagonia region came a day after the Senate partially lifted her immunity from prosecution as a sitting senator, deepening an investigation that prosecutors say is laying bare a widespread corruption scheme during her administration.

Nearly 80 large borrowers, with at least Rs 2000 crore of outstanding loans each, are likely to be impacted by the Reserve Bank of India's February 12 circular on non-performing loans unless they implement a resolution plan before the August 27 deadline, sources told CNBC-TV18. According to the central bank's revised framework for the resolution of stressed assets, now popularly referred to as the February 12 circular, banks were given 180 days to resolve defaulting accounts of over Rs 2,000 crore, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Insolvency practitioners could face fines of up to $75,000 if they don't report serious issues in failed businesses, if proposed legislative amendments go ahead, Radio New Zealand reported. The penalties were one idea floated in a Supplementary Order Paper on the proposed amendments to the Insolvency Practitioners Bill. The legislation aimed to get rid of errant behaviour by so-called friendly liquidators, administrators and receivers who did not give all creditors a fair go. Submissions on the bill close on Friday.