Headlines

UltraTech Cement Ltd. has signed an “in-principle” pact with Binani Industries Ltd. to buy its holdings of a distressed unit as India’s largest cement maker attempts to beat out a Bain-backed consortium, which earlier made the winning bid in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, Bloomberg News reported. UltraTech, controlled by billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla, said it had agreed to pay 72.7 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) for a 98.43 percent stake in Binani Cement Ltd. “subject to termination of” the insolvency proceedings that are underway, according to an exchange filing. The Dalmia Bharat Ltd.

A sharp pullback in France has dragged down the latest reading of European construction, with production sinking by 2.2 per cent across the Eurozone and by 2.1 per cent across the EU in January, the Financial Times reported. A decline is not unusual for the first month of the year, but still adds to a run of downbeat measures for the month.

Britain's Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said on Monday it commenced an investigation into the conduct of two former finance directors of bankrupt construction firm Carillion plc, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The FRC in January opened an investigation into KPMG's auditing of the now-collapsed Carillion covering the years 2014 to 2017. The investigation into former group finance directors Richard Adam and Zafar Khan will be conducted under the Accountancy Scheme, FRC said on Monday.

Mozambique will meet its commercial creditors on Tuesday in London to present proposals on how to restructure its huge debts, but Eurobond holders and analysts expressed little confidence on how much progress can be made, Nasdaq.com reported. Shortly after restructuring a Eurobond in 2016, Mozambique's government admitted to $1.4 billion of previously undisclosed loans, much of which was spent on building a state tuna-fishing company and enhancing maritime security.

Ukip is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after it was presented with a legal bill of £175,000 for its part in a libel action involving three Labour MPs in the run up to the 2015 election, The Guardian reported. If the party does not appeal, it must find the cash in the next fortnight, which may leave it unable to field candidates in the local elections in May. The party has been hovering on the edge of insolvency since its support collapsed following the resignation of Nigel Farage as leader after the EU referendum.

Noble Group Ltd. is racing against time to garner enough votes for a debt restructuring plan after its decision not to pay a $379 million bond due Tuesday sets it on course for its first note default, Bloomberg News reported. The failed payment is set to prompt an “event of default” under the terms of its bond documents. The company has opted for non-payment to preserve assets “for the benefit of all stakeholders during the implementation of the proposed restructuring,” it said in a filing Friday.

The confluence of shocks that has hit African countries in recent years has led to a strong increase in the number of International Monetary Fund bailouts in the region, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The total agreed amount of the IMF’s outstanding programmes with Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries rose nearly fivefold between end-2014 and end-2017 from $1.8bn to $7.2bn.

“Patient, persistent and prudent,” have become Mario Draghi’s watchwords for the normalisation of eurozone monetary policy. The European Central Bank president repeated his mantra last week as he set out his intentions for the withdrawal of stimulus: interest rates would not rise until “well past” the end of the ECB’s bond-buying programme, and then only at a predictable and “measured” pace, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

Manifest, an adviser to investors that collectively oversee more than £1tn in assets, has gone into administration, the Financial Times reported. Moore Stephens, the accountancy company, has been appointed as the administrator for the UK-based business, which analyses companies on behalf of investors and advises on corporate governance issues. Jeremy Willmont, partner at Moore Stephens and administrator of Manifest, said he was currently looking for a buyer for the proxy voting agency and was in talks with a “number of people”.

The road to eurozone renewal envisioned by French President Emmanuel Macron won’t be a speedy autobahn. At meetings between French and German officials in Paris as German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited for the first time since her re-election, officials stated their differences on key planks for rebuilding the eurozone’s architecture. They pledged to come up with a “road map” for overhauling the currency bloc in June, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We are not always of the same opinion, but Germany and France have already achieved many things together,” Ms. Merkel said.