Headlines

S&P Global Inc., the financial-information giant, plans to build a stand-alone ratings business in China, bringing it a step closer to expanding its presence in one of the world’s biggest bond markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company has notified the Chinese government of a plan to launch an independent credit-ratings firm in the country, an S&P spokesman said Wednesday. A trade deal last year opened up China to U.S. ratings firms. S&P is speaking with regulators on the entrance. Moody’s Corp.

Italy's partners in the euro lined up in Brussels on Thursday to urge the new government in Rome to stick to EU budget rules or risk following Greece into financial calamity that would hurt the whole of Europe, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Arriving for a meeting of euro zone finance ministers, the hawkish Slovak representative went so far as to warn that Italy under its new eurosceptic, anti-austerity coalition risks casting itself adrift from the common currency in a manner that would do severe damage across the bloc.

In a related story, the Financial Times reported that investors last week withdrew the most money in nearly two years from western European funds, after the election in Italy of two populist parties raised concerns about the country’s commitment to the eurozone and its fiscal policies. Equity funds investing in the region suffered $2.6bn of outflows in the week that ended on May 24, and bond funds saw withdrawals of $1.8bn of investor cash, according to EPFR.

PwC halved the estimated costs of winding up British brokerage Beaufort Securities on Wednesday, potentially boosting funds for hard-pressed mining companies and other clients that are expected to shoulder the costs, Reuters reported. Beaufort, which specialised in helping to raise money for the junior mining sector, was declared insolvent in March after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged it had a role in a more than $50 million stock fraud and a laundering scheme involving a work by Pablo Picasso.

A Botswana court has overturned last month’s High Court decision to take Tati Nickel Mine out of provisional liquidation because the earlier ruling did not consider the impact on creditors, Reuters reported. Tati, a subsidiary of the liquidated BCL mine group, has been under provisional liquidation since October 2016. The liquidation was extended twice after liquidator Nigel Dixon-Warren requested more time to pursue a deal with investors. The High Court took the company out of liquidation in April following the lapse of the last extension.

French fashion house Carven, which dressed cabaret queen Edith Piaf, is filing for bankruptcy protection, a spokesman for the company, which employs 100 people, said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Carven, founded in 1945 by Carmen de Tommaso, took the world of fashion by storm in the 1950s with pink chequer dresses, counting among its most illustrious clients Parisian singer Piaf. “Carven is in default on payments and will on Wednesday be asking to be placed under bankruptcy protection of the Paris commercial court via receivership procedures,” a Carven spokesman said.

Turkey’s banks will likely benefit from Wednesday night’s interest-rate increase, though there will be some pain as well, Bloomberg News reported. That’s the assessment of some analysts after the central bank’s emergency move to halt a run on the lira. While there will be a short-term hit to funding costs and lending margins, banks will be helped as the move stems panic in financial markets, according to Cagdas Dogan, a banking analyst at Istanbul-based BGC Partners Inc.

The directors of 1MDB have confirmed that the state investment company is "insolvent" and unable to repay debts that could amount to almost $7 billion over the next five years, said Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng. The company’s former Chief Financial Officer Azmi Tahir wrote to the finance ministry in March, stating that 1MDB wouldn’t be able to service interest payments due in April and May, Lim said in a statement on Wednesday, following meetings with 1MDB’s president, board of directors and other senior officials, Bloomberg News reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes four years in office on May 26. He’s used the time to give India its biggest tax reform, overhauled a century-old bankruptcy law, revived stalled projects and got the World Bank to say Asia’s No. 3 economy is a much better place to do business. Still, all’s not well with the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Once-trusted state-owned banks are facing allegations of fraud, their soured-debt pile is larger than ever, investors are dumping Indian stocks and bonds amid a stronger dollar and U.S. Treasury yields.

It didn’t take long for the world’s biggest bond investors to decide that Russia isn’t quite such a toxic trade after all, Bloomberg News reported. Less than two months after getting caught out with overweight positions as Russian debt was roiled by a fresh round of U.S. sanctions, some traders are finding their appetite again amid a quiet patch in tensions between Washington and the Kremlin. Russia has outperformed all peers this month and is one of only two countries to post a return in a Bloomberg Barclays index of emerging-market local-currency bonds.