Headlines

It’s been more than three months since the first of more than a dozen Venezuelan bonds was declared in default, and the arrears keep stacking up, Bloomberg News reported. Wall Street investors reluctant to give up hope they’ll eventually be paid are in limbo after the nation and its state oil company busted through grace periods on about $1.7 billion of debt payments, rating firms declared many securities in default and swaps that provide insurance against non-payment were triggered. For now, everyone is just waiting.

Edwin Wong, the chief investment officer of Hong Kong-headquartered SSG Capital Management and an ex-Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. banker, sees a multitude of opportunities in India as the nation pushes ahead with a bankruptcy system overhaul, Bloomberg News reported. There was further evidence of that this week, with the Reserve Bank of India introducing a time line for the country’s banks to recast bad loans and also scrapping previous methods.

Steinhoff has appointed a former KPMG partner to head restructuring efforts as it tries to rebuild its balance sheet in the wake of an accounting scandal, the Financial Times reported. The South Africa-based retail conglomerate said in January it was looking to appoint an “independent debt restructuring expert” as chief restructuring officer as part of a board overhaul following the departure of its most senior managers.

Greece won't backtrack on its privatisation plan after its bailout ends and expects state companies to submit plans by April to make themselves more competitive, the head of its state assets fund said. Greece, whose bailout ends in August, has agreed with lenders to raise another 3 billion euros (2.63 billion pounds) by 2019 from state asset sales and has promised to launch stake sales in Athens International Airport (AIA), gas company DEPA and oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum by next month, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

"Every promise is debt - think about it," screams the message below a huge, ticking "debt clock" that greets passengers at the main train stations in Rome and Milan. The digital clocks, installed by a think tank, update Italy's 2.3 trillion-euro debt in real time, urging voters to fear election promises that analysts say could send the debt spiraling out of control after next month's vote, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

S&P Global Ratings stepped up its scrutiny of HNA Group Co. by cutting its credit assessment for the second time in less than three months as the debt-laden Chinese conglomerate renewed a defense of its "very healthy" finances, Bloomberg News reported. Late Tuesday, S&P said it lowered HNA’s unofficial credit score by two notches to ccc+, or seven levels deep into junk territory, citing the group’s deteriorating liquidity profile.

Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla and an investor group led by Dalmia Bharat Ltd. are emerging as the lead bidders for India’s Binani Cement Ltd., which is being sold under the country’s insolvency process, people with knowledge of the matter said. Birla’s UltraTech Cement Ltd. and the Dalmia Bharat consortium have each made cash offers of around 60 billion rupees ($936 million), the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private, Bloomberg News reported.

Investors who bought Greece’s latest bond last week are already nursing paper losses, the Financial Times reported. The seven-year bond priced at a yield of 3.5 per cent on Thursday, but the €3bn paper is now trading at 4.19 per cent. Yields rise when prices fall. The timing of the deal was hit by market turbulence last week, with Greece naming bookrunners on the Monday but, after markets shifted on Tuesday, it waited until Thursday to price. The yield on Greece’s 10-year debt has also risen, up 80 basis points in the past week to 4.47 per cent.

Just when many Indian banks thought the worst of their bad debt woes were behind them, new central bank rules are stoking fears that the worst of the soured-loans buildup is yet to come, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The central bank surprised the financial sector this week by halting all of its existing loan-restructuring mechanisms with immediate effect, and rolling out new rules that will push more debt defaulters into bankruptcy courts.

Permanent TSB has put as much as €4 billion of non-performing mortgages up for sale under its so-called Project Glas portfolio, triple the amount previously envisaged by management at one time, it has emerged, the Irish Times reported. The size of the planned transaction is equivalent to almost a fifth of its current total loan book.