Headlines

Brazil’s government needs swift congressional action to avoid defaulting on loan guarantees it has made to Venezuela and Mozambique, Bloomberg News reported. Legislators must approve the use of up to 1.5 billion reais ($424 million) to honor loans that banks made as part of a policy to finance exports. Brasilia itself is on the hook because Caracas is poised to miss a May 8 deadline for a $275 million debt installment.

House of Fraser is to close stores, potentially putting hundreds of jobs at risk, in a restructuring deal that will give control of the retail chain to the Chinese owner of Hamleys. C.banner is buying a 51% stake in the parent group of the ailing department store group, The Guardian reported. The buyout will involve the acquisition of shares from Nanjing Cenbest, part of China’s Sanpower conglomerate, which will retain a minority stake. C.banner has also agreed to pay a further £70m for new shares leading to a “significant capital injection” in House of Fraser.

Cambridge Analytica, the firm embroiled in a controversy over its handling of Facebook data, should not escape scrutiny through its decision to shut down, the chairman of a committee of British lawmakers said. Cambridge Analytica and its parent, SCL Elections, said on Wednesday they would begin bankruptcy proceedings after losing clients and facing mounting legal fees following reports the company wrongly harvested Facebook users' personal data from 2014, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

In an unexpected move, Standard & Poor’s cut its sovereign debt rating on Turkey further into junk territory on Tuesday, citing widening concern about the outlook for inflation amid a sell-off in the Turkish lira currency, Reuters reported. S&P said the ratings decision, cutting Turkey to “BB-/B” from “BB/B,” was not part of its regularly scheduled reviews, reflecting what it said were growing concerns. “The downgrade reflects our concerns over a deteriorating inflation outlook and the long-term depreciation and volatility of Turkey’s exchange rate,” S&P said in a statement.

Swiss prosecutors have launched criminal proceedings against two officials at PetroSaudi International Ltd. related to alleged dealings with Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd, an escalation of the Swiss probe that started nearly three years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported. 1MDB is the subject of investigations in the U.S., Switzerland and other countries into allegations that billions of dollars were siphoned out of the fund, which was set up by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009.

The observations and conclusions in the Essar Steel Ltd. and Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd. insolvency cases are likely to impact the insolvency process considerably, Bloomberg Quint reported. The Delhi and Ahmedabad benches of the National Company Law Tribunal have pointed out lapses in the process carried out by the resolution professionals and the committee of creditors. On those grounds, the NCLT allowed Numetal and ArcelorMittal’s bid to be considered for Essar Steel and Liberty House’s bid for Bhushan Power.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has invited comments from public on the broad range of regulations it has already notified under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), as it seeks to ‘crowdsource’ ideas to further strengthen the ecosystem. The comments from the stakeholders, received between April 30 and December 31, will be processed together and following the due process, regulations will be amended to the extent considered necessary, the IBBI said.

GetBack has postponed its 2017 earnings announcement and initiated restructuring plans, the Polish debt collector said, Reuters reported. “The management board decided to proceed with work aimed at preparing documents related to restructuring within the meaning of the restructuring law,” GetBack said in a statement late Monday. “The management board, guided by the good of the company and all entities remaining with the company in any legal and factual relations, undertook actions aimed at avoiding the effect of the company’s insolvency,” it said.

In the event of a shock to China’s economy, problems are likely to emanate from a set of small banks with poor financials and a loan book exposure to China’s weakest provincial economies, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China saw an explosion not only in the level of debt in the economy, but also in the development of complex and opaque shadow banking structures.

Lebara announced on Monday that it will not meet a deadline to file audited annual results, putting the telecoms company at risk of defaulting on its bonds and adding to its recent string of financial reporting issues, the Financial Times reported. The terms of Lebara’s €350m bond dictate that it has to file audited annual accounts 120 days after the end of its financial year, which takes it through to the end of April. Lebara’s Dutch holding company Vieo announced on Monday that it would not meet this deadline, however, and would instead publish accounts “in the coming weeks”.