Headlines

A deepening sense of unease is rippling through China’s financial markets. The benchmark Shanghai stock index has tumbled 20 percent in just five months to enter a bear market, Bloomberg News reported. The yuan is heading for its longest losing streak in four years in Hong Kong. Corporate defaults are mounting. There are homegrown reasons for the concern: the nation’s deleveraging campaign is reducing the amount of liquidity available -- threatening growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Eurogroup President Mario Centeno will seek a mandate to define the process of sovereign public debt restructuring, New Europe reported. His announcement came after the publication of a letter addressed to European Council President Donald Tusk ahead of the EU Summit on June 28-29. In making the announcement, Centeno proposed a restructuring process based on new issuance of single-limb Collective Action Clauses to prevent holdouts, Reuters reported. The two most indebted governments in the Eurozone are Greece, with a 178% debt to GDP ratio, followed by Italy with a 130% debt to GDP.

The co-chief executives of Abraaj Investment Management Ltd (AIML) are stepping down from the board of the unit, days after the Dubai-based firm agreed to sell the bulk of the business to Colony Capital, Reuters reported. This is the latest shakeup at Abraaj, the Middle East and Africa’s largest private equity firm, which has been bruised by a dispute with some of its investors over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund. The group has denied it misused the funds.

A group of investors holding more than $8 billion of bonds issued by Venezuela and its state-owned companies said that nation must treat its creditors equally, and it won’t support any debt restructuring that doesn’t, Bloomberg News reported.

South African units of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. filed for a local form of bankruptcy protection known as business rescue this month, Bloomberg News reported. Jindal Mining SA, Jindal Africa Investments and Eastern Solid Fuels filed notice of the voluntary proceedings on June 12, according to documents posted on Jindal Africa’s website. A spokesman for the company didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment. Jindal Mining SA’s main business is coal production at the Kiepersol mine, according to one of the documents.

Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agency group, plans to tap investors for fresh funds to reduce debt after issuing a fresh profit warning as it struggles with a lacklustre property market and a botched 2015 restructuring, the Financial Times reported. Shares in the company plunged as much as 28 per cent to 57.5p in response to the fundraising plans and profit warning. Countrywide has struggled as nervous sellers have held off on listing properties amid stalling price growth in the housing market. Wider political and economic uncertainties have also undermined the market.

Former Carillion directors could be forced to contribute to the collapsed contractor’s pension scheme after the pensions watchdog confirmed it is investigating whether it has the power to do so, the Financial Times reported. The move by the Pensions Regulator came after MPs on the work and pensions committee on Monday urged the watchdog to go after Carillion’s former directors “for everything they’ve got”.

Moody’s has given its cautious blessing to the historic Greek debt relief deal hammered out in Luxembourg last week, the Financial Times reported. The eurozone agreement gave the southern European country “significant further debt relief that ensures the Greek government has very moderate refinancing needs for the next 10 years”, the rating agency said, marking a shift in position from the more sceptical stance taken on previous plans to cut Greece’s debt burden.

The French financial regulator has said it will not seek changes to “delegation” rules — a move that could have restricted UK fund managers serving overseas clients after Brexit, the Financial Times reported. Current rules permit asset management companies to operate in multiple locations, including London, and the City has become a global centre of portfolio management. It had been feared, however, that UK managers could be cut off from European clients if national regulators sought stricter regulation.

The head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers said on Monday that he would seek guidance from European Union leaders on Friday on measures to facilitate euro zone public debt restructuring, a possibility one economist dubbed a "bombshell,” the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The move is based on a joint proposal put forward last week by Germany and France, aimed at making it easier to restructure debt. The two most indebted governments in the euro zone are now Greece and Italy -- both above 130 percent of GDP.