Headlines

Hammerson plans to sell £1.1bn of properties by the end of 2019 and buy back up to £300m of shares as the shopping centre landlord tries to appease unhappy shareholders and the activist investors Elliott, the Financial Times reported. Setting out a new strategy after a turbulent period of failed takeovers earlier this year, the FTSE 250 group said it would increase non-UK exposure above half of its portfolio for the first time in its recent history.

Foreign investors shed record volumes of Italian debt in May as a sharp sell-off hit the country’s bond market, according to data highlighting the challenges facing the new populist government in the coming months. Italy’s governing coalition is set to bring forward a contentious budget this autumn, which some investors fear could threaten the country’s fiscal outlook, the Financial Times reported. Earlier this month the new government said it would not take any further measures to cut its deficit this year and warned of a possible downgrade to growth forecasts.

The eurozone’s economy is still at risk of a slowdown, with an influential poll of purchasing managers giving an early indication that growth will remain weak in the second half of this year after a bumper 2017. Flash readings of the purchasing managers’ index for July released on Tuesday suggest manufacturers across the single currency area are struggling to adjust to mounting concerns about the threat of a global trade war, the Financial Times reported.

Chinese independent refiner Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group and a chemical trader have filed for joint bankruptcy, according to a court filing, the latest sign of deepening pain for the sector amid high oil prices and greater regulatory scrutiny, Reuters reported.

McColl’s Retail Group Plc expects full-year core earnings to be flat and posted a drop in first-half like-for-like sales, as supplies were hit after last year’s collapse of cigarette wholesaler Palmer & Harvey, sending its shares down 15 percent on Monday, Reuters reported. The British convenience retailer also said Chief Financial Officer Simon Fuller was leaving the company. The company now expects 2018 full-year adjusted core earnings to be at a similar level to the prior year after a 2.7 percent drop in first-half like-for-like sales.

When the European Central Bank decided last month to call time on the €2.5tn bond buying spree that has provided the core of its crisis response, Mario Draghi, president, and his team knew they were taking a risk. Now they are waiting for the data that will show whether the ECB was reckless at a time when threats to the economy are mounting, the Financial Times reported. After a surprisingly strong 2017, the eurozone economy has begun to sputter.

China's biggest manager of bad debts is trying to exit early from at least three loans and investments as it wrestles with a liquidity crunch triggered by an anti-corruption probe into its chairman, people with knowledge of the matter said, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. China Huarong Asset Management, one of four state-backed so-called "bad banks" formed in 1999, has been trying to raise cash since Lai Xiaomin resigned as chairman in April amid a graft probe, the sources said.

Ramón Rivera had barely gotten his olive oil business started in the sun-swept Alentejo region of Portugal when Europe’s debt crisis struck. The economy crumbled, wages were cut, and unemployment doubled, the International New York Times reported. The government in Lisbon had to accept a humiliating international bailout. But as the misery deepened, Portugal took a daring stand: In 2015, it cast aside the harshest austerity measures its European creditors had imposed, igniting a virtuous cycle that put its economy back on a path to growth.

Chinese domestic bonds may once have been the world’s biggest market that no one paid attention to. No longer. Mounting defaults and steepening yields have raised doubts about the $12 trillion market’s health, just as China’s economy shows signs of faltering, The Wall Street Journal reported. All the same, foreign investors have been piling in this year. Are they headed for a rude awakening? Stress is rising, for sure: Chinese companies have defaulted on $2.9 billion worth of bonds this year, almost as much as in all of 2017, according to Wind Info data.

GLG Life Tech Corporation (GLG) (“GLG” or the “Company”), a global leader in the agricultural and commercial development of high-quality zero-calorie natural sweeteners, is pleased to announce today that it has reached a pivotal milestone in its efforts to restructure the Company’s Chinese-held debt, MarketWatch reported.