Headlines

Italy’s crisis gives the European Central Bank tough choices as it tries to tread a line between containing market turmoil and sticking to plans to end its crisis-era monetary support, the Financial Times reported. The dilemma is made even more acute by the nationality of the ECB’s president. Mario Draghi, head of the Bank of Italy before his ECB appointment, knows better than anyone his country’s importance to his current mandate to ensure eurozone stability.

Bondholders led by BlackRock Inc have agreed to inject capital into Quintis Ltd and take it private, rescuing the Australian sandalwood firm after it collapsed in the wake of a short-seller attack, Reuters reported. Between A$125 million and A$175 million ($95 million to $132 million) in capital will be provided and the bondholders will acquire control of the company, administrator McGrathNicol said in a statement. “It is expected that the proposal will be supported by growers, employees and creditors whose rights and long term interests are protected,” the statement said.

Britain’s pensions watchdog head Lesley Titcomb will step down at the end of her four-year contract in February 2019, The Pensions Regulator said on Thursday. The search for her successor will begin immediately and will be led by Chairman Mark Boyle, the watchdog said. Titcomb, who was appointed chief executive of the watchdog in 2015, oversaw the collapse of construction outsourcing company Carillion Plc earlier in the year and department store chain BHS in 2016, Reuters reported.

India’s Reliance Communications (RCom) said on Wednesday it expects to complete its asset sale to Reliance Jio Infocomm and Canada’s Brookfield in coming weeks, after the bankruptcy appeals court halted insolvency proceedings against the debt-laden company, Reuters reported. The 181 billion-rupee ($2.7 billion) asset sale by businessman Anil Ambani-controlled RCom includes airwaves, fiber, mobile masts and real estate assets in Delhi and Chennai, the company said in a statement, as it aims to prune its debt pile.

Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court will rule on whether amendments to Bulgaria’s bank insolvency law, passed by Parliament earlier this year, breach constitutional provisions, the Sofia Globe reported. The controversial amendments, tabled by the opposition Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) but backed by the government coalition, have been criticised by legal experts for introducing a retroactive effect.

Signs of overheating have begun to emerge in the Irish economy, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned. In its latest economic outlook report, the Paris-based agency said new mortgage loans and loans to small firms – largely driven by construction-related activity – had risen sharply in recent months, the Irish Times reported. While the Central Bank’s lending restrictions, such as the loan-to-value and loan-to-income caps, have reduced the share of risky loans, the OECD said they may need to be extended to cool the current level of credit growth.

Romania saw a sharp increase in commercial insolvency in the first four months of this year, the latest data published on the website of the National Office of Trade Registry (ONRC) showed. According to the statistics, the number of commercial companies and authorized natural persons (ANP) in insolvency or suspension increased year-over-year by 17.38 and 35.58 percent, respectively, in January-April, 2018, the Xinhua News Agency reported. According to the ONRC data, 2,965 companies and ANP declared insolvency in the first four months of 2018, while 6,958 others suspended their activity.

Brussels is to propose a €30 billion loan plan for countries hit by economic shocks, as it responds to French calls for a euro zone crisis-fighting budget, the Irish Times reported. The European Investment Stabilisation Function is far less ambitious than ideas put forward by French president Emmanuel Macron, who last year called for a fund amounting to several percentage points of euro zone gross domestic product.

Indonesia’s central bank raised interest rates for the second time in as many weeks on Wednesday after its newly-appointed governor called an off-cycle monetary policy meeting, the Financial Times reported. The Bank of Indonesia increased its benchmark seven-day repo rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent, after raising rates for the first time since 2014 in mid-May in a bid to prevent capital flight. In its mid-May statement, the bank highlighted that the move was designed to support the rupiah.

When top Chinese business leaders and officials face charges, they usually have one option: Go quietly. The tycoon at the center of one of China’s biggest cases of financial fraud seems to be taking a different path, the International New York Times reported. A lawyer representing Wu Xiaohui, a businessman who rose to prominence in part through his company’s purchase of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, said Wednesday in a social media post that Mr. Wu would appeal a lengthy prison sentence for bilking investors.