Headlines

Deutsche Bank's sudden change in chief executive could prolong the lender's restructuring, ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) said as it placed the bank on "credit watch negative" late on Thursday. Last weekend retail banking specialist Christian Sewing replaced John Cryan as Deutsche's CEO, raising the prospect of radical change at Germany's flagship lender, which has been slower than rivals to reform after the financial crisis, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The true size of Zambia’s debt is “debatable” because the country has contracted more loans than official external debt numbers show, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said. While the nation signed up for $5.3 billion in debt from 2015 to 2016 and the lender estimates it contracted another $4.4 billion last year, official external debt only grew $1 billion over the period, analysts Rukayat Yusuf and Andrew Macfarlane said in an emailed note on Thursday, Bloomberg News reported.

Scott Hannah says low borrowing costs and rising home prices have lured Canadians into a debt trap they may not escape if looming economic threats materialize, Bloomberg News reported. Hannah, president of the Credit Counselling Society, is seeing an influx of clients as higher financing costs begin to bite and people find it harder to manage. Phone calls were up 5.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, while online chats increased 40 percent.

Deutsche Bank AG may be downgraded by S&P Global Ratings, which said the German bank’s leadership change may signal a “prolonged, deepened or more costly restructuring” that could weigh on the bank’s credit rating, Bloomberg News reported. The lender’s A- long-term rating is under review, S&P said in a statement late Thursday, while affirming its BBB- rating on the bank’s senior subordinated debt.

Beleaguered British floor coverings retailer Carpetright has struck an emergency agreement with its lenders to close or exit leases of at least 92 shops in a restructuring that will affect 300 jobs. Carpetright, which has warned on profits three times since December, said it was entering into a creditors’ voluntary arrangement, which is a type of restructuring plan designed to keep businesses out of formal insolvency proceedings, the Financial Times reported.

The final UK stores of children's retailer Toys R Us are to close by April 24, two months after the British arm of the company collapsed into administration, the Financial Times reported. Administrators from insolvency specialist Moorfields Advisory said on Thursday all of the remaining 75 Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores in the UK would close between April 18 and April 24, resulting in the loss of 2,054 jobs. Employees had been informed and would be up to and including their last day, the administrators said.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann expressed scepticism on Thursday over a proposal to reform the European Union bailout fund, the ESM, just hours after the European Central Bank said it supported the effort, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Weidmann, frequently mentioned as a candidate to replace ECB chief Mario Draghi next year, said the proposal would fail if it curtailed member states' control over the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which has a lending capacity of around 500 billion euros.

Botswana’s High Court has taken Tati Nickel Mine out of provisional liquidation, dismissing a request for more time to negotiate with potential buyers, the liquidator said on Wednesday. Tati — a subsidiary of the liquidated BCL mine group — has since October 2016 been under provisional liquidation, which was twice extended after liquidator Nigel Dixon-Warren asked for more time to pursue a deal with investors, Reuters reported. The High Court took the company out of liquidation on Tuesday following the lapse of the last extension.

French oil major Total said it had bought several assets in the Gulf of Mexico for around $300 million, as part of the Cobalt International Energy company’s bankruptcy auction sale, Reuters reported. Total said it was buying a 20 percent stake in the North Platte asset. Following this move, Total will have a 60 percent overall stake in North Platte, with Statoil holding the remaining 40 percent. Total also bought a further 20 percent stake in the Anchor discovery, increasing its overall holding in that asset - which is operated by Chevron - to 32.5 percent.

Oaktree Capital Group LLC, one of the world’s largest distressed debt investors, is eyeing India as a key market as the nation overhauls its bankruptcy rules and banks battle with a historic bad debt clean-up, Bloomberg News reported. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see India as another engine of growth maybe in the next three to five years,” said Jay Wintrob, chief executive officer at the Los Angeles-based firm, in an interview in Hong Kong.