Headlines

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund will examine debt-crippled OPEC member Congo Republic's request for a bailout on July 6, according to an IMF calendar seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Like other central African oil producers, Congo has been hit hard by low crude prices and is struggling under the weight of over $9 billion in debt, equivalent to around 110 percent of its gross domestic product, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Bahrain said Wednesday its Gulf neighbors Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will offer new aid to strengthen the island nation's "fiscal stability" amid growing concerns over its economy, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Bahrain, just off the coast of Saudi Arabia, long has relied on the largess of its wealthy neighbors to support it despite being the first Arab nation in the Persian Gulf to strike oil.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have issued arrest warrants for the founder of private equity firm Abraaj and another executive for issuing a check without sufficient funds, according to a prosecution document seen by Reuters. The warrants are the latest setback for the Middle East and Africa’s biggest private equity fund, which has been locked in a dispute with four investors over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund, Reuters reported. Abraaj has denied misusing funds.

The absence of any signal of financial aid from Bahrain’s neighbors sent the kingdom’s credit risk rising the most in emerging markets this month, Bloomberg News reported. The cost of insuring Bahrain’s debt against default for five years jumped 170 basis points on Monday, the most since records began in 2008, to 609. That’s the highest among emerging-market peers after Lebanon. The dinar, whose peg to the dollar has been effectively unchanged since 1980, fell a fourth day in the onshore market to the weakest level since at least 1988.

Fugitive Indian businessman Vijay Mallya has sought court approvals to sell some frozen assets worth 139 billion rupees ($2 billion), making a fresh attempt to settle bank dues owed by his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. Mallya and his United Breweries Holdings Ltd. filed an application before a court in the southern Karnataka state on June 22, seeking permission to repay creditors from the proceeds of the sale, according to a statement on Tuesday.

Asian junk bonds have sold off amid defaults and concerns over refinancing risks, dividing veterans on where the $121 billion market is headed, Bloomberg News reported. Spreads on the region’s high-yield dollar notes have widened to the highest in nearly two years, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index. The threat of a trade war and rising interest rates have added to concerns after recent defaults by China Energy Reserve & Chemicals Group Co. and Hsin Chong Group Holdings Ltd. For investors like Lombard Odier (Singapore), the selloff has increased the securities’ appeal.

Essar, which owes creditors $7.6 billion, is one of a dozen large debtors that were ordered into bankruptcy court after India’s central bank received additional powers to speed the process of winding down troubled companies, Bloomberg News reported. There are more than 2,500 bankruptcy cases wending their way through India’s notoriously slow legal system. Until the special courts were established by the 2016 Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, bankruptcies could drag on for years.

Struggling flooring retailer Carpetright has posted a £71m annual loss and warned that trading continues to be difficult, prompting further falls in its share price, the Financial Times reported. The company on Tuesday said that “adverse publicity” about its restructuring had affected both suppliers, which had responded by tightening the terms on which they would extend credit for purchases, and customers.

France’s finance minister has cautioned that a landmark Franco-German proposal for a eurozone budget was “non-negotiable” as he urged EU members to refrain from using the reform as a bargaining chip in the bloc’s mounting dispute over migration, the Financial Times reported. Speaking to the Financial Times days before EU leaders meet to review the Franco-German “road map” for the eurozone, Bruno Le Maire hit back at a faction of 12 member states that has sharply criticised the plans, accusing those governments of being “of bad-faith” or “contradictory”.

Vodafone's Ghana business plans to list on the local stock market after restructuring its loans, the head of the local unit told Reuters on Tuesday. Yolanda Zoleka Cuba said Vodafone was in talks with the West African country, which owns a 30 percent stake, to restructure its debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The world's largest mobile group by revenue paid $900 million for a 70 percent stake in state-run Ghana telecom in 2008 while the government retained the remaining 30 percent with an enterprise value of around $1.3 billion at the time.