Headlines

The Mumbai bench of NCLT on Tuesday granted the resolution professional of debt ridden steel company Monnet Ispat and Energy an extension of 90 days to complete its insolvency resolution process as the initial 180 days were to expire on January 13, the Economic Times reported. The extension will give the resolution practitioner and lenders more time to negotiate with JSW Steel on the terms of the resolution plan submitted by them to acquire the company. A consortium of Aion Capital Partners and JSW Steel had emerged as the sole bidder for Monnet.

The judge overseeing the restructuring process of Brazilian telecom company Oi SA approved a massive debt restructuring plan on Monday and called a proposed shareholders meeting “absolutely unnecessary,” Reuters reported. In the decision, Judge Fernando Viana gave the official go-ahead to Latin America’s largest ever in-court debt reorganization. On Dec. 20, a majority of Oi creditors approved a plan to restructure 65 billion reais ($20.1 billion) of debt, putting an end to a year and a half of negotiations.

Airline Niki’s insolvency should have been filed in Austria not Germany, a Berlin court ruled on Monday, in a move which could unravel last month’s deal to sell the Air Berlin business to British Airways owner IAG, Reuters reported. Niki filed for insolvency in Berlin last month after Germany’s Lufthansa scrapped plans to buy the Austrian airline, grounding its fleet and stranding thousands of passengers. After hurried talks to find a new owner for Niki before it lost its valuable runway slots, IAG agreed to buy the business and make it part of low-cost unit Vueling.

Owners of unsecured bonds in rig firm Seadrill have posted a cash deposit to back an alternative financial restructuring, paving the way for talks with the drilling operator over its future, the two sides said on Monday. Seadrill, once the largest drilling rig operator by market value, filed for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court on Sept. 12 after being hit hard by cutbacks in oil company investment following a steep drop in crude prices, Reuters reported.

Ecuador's comptroller's office on Monday announced it will open an audit of debt contracted in the last five years of the government of former President Rafael Correa to determine the legality of the operations and the use of the funds. The move follows a report by the comptroller's office revealing that some documentation relating to debt operations had been declared secret and that official reports on public debt had excluded some of the operations, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Listed Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (PT&T) is poised to implement a capital restructuring plan that would settle long-running obligations ahead of the entry of a foreign strategic partner, Inquirer.net reported. A key feature of the plan, according to PT&T chief operating officer Miguel Bitanga, is the conversion of its creditors into preferred shareholders, which was outlined under the company’s court-mandated rehabilitation. This was linked to a series of steps, including increasing PT&T’s authorized capital.

The world's three largest credit-ratings companies have a bit of catching up to do. Eight high-yield developers listed in Hong Kong should now be investment grade, according to Bloomberg's default risk model, which uses market inputs such as debt outstanding, interest expenses and operating cash flow to calculate the probability of firms reneging on their obligations in the year ahead, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. Bloomberg's default risk model shows that companies from Country Garden to CIFI Holdings deserve an investment-grade ranking.

For Greece, 2018 is a crucial year, Bloomberg News reported. The key question in the months ahead for what was once the epicenter of the European credit crisis is: Will it turn the corner and wean itself of external aid like Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus -- something the Greek government wants? Or, will the current bailout program, which ends Aug. 20, be followed by a similar arrangement -- as some observers expect?

Units of HNA Group Co. missed payments due to several Chinese banks in recent weeks, prompting three lenders to freeze some of the borrowers’ unused credit lines, people with knowledge of the matter said. As of Jan. 4, four of the banks still hadn’t collected on principal and interest payments owed late last year, said the people, who spoke on condition the lenders not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. They declined to name the units or provide any details on the size of the missed payments. China Citic Bank Corp.

Some leading economists, including Barry Eichengreen and Dani Rodrik, have been engaged in an important debate in recent months over the extent to which a fully operational banking union in Europe makes fiscal union redundant, the Financial Times reported. This is not the case, and the reasons why go to the heart of Europe’s woes, and the eurozone’s in particular. It is critical that the economic recovery in Europe, however anaemic, does not short circuit this debate and obscure the need to reform Europe’s economic and financial architecture.