Headlines

Over the course of the past week, we learnt two new things about the eurozone. Germany has closed the doors on serious reform. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron’s meeting in Berlin exposed deep differences about the German and French leaders’ visions of the future. What also transpired more clearly is that there has been a sudden decline in the eurozone’s economic activity, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The latter is puzzling. It could be a fluke, but a number of recent indicators have all surprised on the downside.

Bowing to criticism from the Singapore Exchange and other investors, embattled Noble Group is removing a provision in its $3.4 billion debt restructuring proposal that penalized shareholders voting against the plan, Reuters reported. The debt-for-equity swap is crucial for the survival of the Singapore-listed company, which has sold billions of dollars of assets, taken hefty writedowns and cut hundreds of jobs over the past three years to slash debt. Noble has secured the backing of its creditors, but it also needs approval from a majority of its shareholders.

The Republic of Congo’s plan to restructure its debt won’t affect holders of its Eurobonds, Prime Minister Clement Mouamba said. Yields on the notes fell for the first time in four days, Bloomberg News reported. The oil-producing central African nation owes creditors at least $9.14 billion and sought support from the International Monetary Fund last year. A three-year program to help stabilize the country’s “unsustainable external debt” is expected to be agreed soon, Mouamba said in a statement emailed from the capital, Brazzaville.

Want to screw up a good law? Just try to make it a great one. That's what India did last November when it added a number of restrictions on who could bid for assets in a bankruptcy. The idea of the new regulations was to make it hard for errant owners to regain control of businesses without first settling their dues. But the morality was legal overkill; and that's now evident in the farce that the insolvency of Essar Steel India Ltd. has become, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary.

Banca Ifis SpA and Cabot Credit Management Plc are among four firms in talks to buy FBS, an Italian manager of more than 8 billion euros ($9.9 billion) of non-performing loans, people with knowledge of the matter said. The sale comes as NPL investors are snapping up Italian debt collectors to access Europe’s largest trove of troubled loans, Bloomberg News reported. An improving Italian economy and measures to simplify bankruptcy proceedings are increasing the prospects of recovery.

Sub-Saharan Africa is slipping into a new debt crisis, with 40 per cent of the region’s countries now at high risk of debt distress — double the proportion of five years ago, the Financial Times reported. With the number of countries already unable to service their debts doubling in the past year to eight, officials at the IMF are urging all African countries to raise taxes to provide more scope for paying interest, which has increased to levels last experienced at the start of the century.

Sweeping reforms to insolvency laws and regulations are set to benefit distressed companies that are attempting to negotiate a sale and avert going into administration, The Australian Financial Review reported. Local lawyers are of the view that draft regulations released this week by Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer are largely positive for lenders, struggling companies and the restructuring industry.

Offshore oil driller Seadrill plans to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late June or early July to catch the rising wave of rig market activity, its chief executive told said on Wednesday. The company won U.S. court approval on Tuesday for its multi-billion dollar debt restructuring plan after reaching a deal with more than 40 banks, unsecured creditors and shipyards, Reuters reported. “The confirmation is the most significant milestone in the process, and now we need to implement the plan over 60 to 90 days.

A pair of investors in Delta Drone were fined a combined 600,000 euros ($520,000) for selling shares when they had non-public information in 2014 about the company’s financial difficulties, Bloomberg News reported. The Autorite des Marches Financiers fined company co-founder Frederic Serre -- who’s been involved in a series of startups -- 200,000 euros on Tuesday for having sold a chunk of shares in the civil drone manufacturer after being told by the chief executive officer the firm might become insolvent.

To many economists, the solution to India’s bad-loan crisis appears as obvious as the problem: Privatize state-owned banks, which have racked up billions more in soured loans and performed much worse than their private-sector counterparts. Yet, unless the government first strengthens its ability to supervise all banks, public and private, selling some of them off will be slim guarantee against another crisis, a Bloomberg View reported. One can understand the urge to privatize. A long-mooted bankruptcy law finally passed last year allows any single creditor to initiate the bankruptcy process.