Headlines

Alibaba’s finance affiliate has banned consumer-loan products that charge annual interest rates above 24 per cent from its marketing platform. The step is the latest sign of how tighter regulation is reshaping China’s once-freewheeling internet lending industry, the Financial Times reported. Online consumer lending has boomed over the past year. Small-loan companies that lend online using their own capital have largely replaced peer-to-peer lenders as the main source of online consumer and small-business loans, following a regulatory crackdown on P2P.

A Brazilian judge has decided to uphold bankruptcy protection for Seara Industria & Comércio de Produtos Agropecuários Ltda, a soy and corn trader whose largest creditor is U.S. agriculture cooperative CHS Inc, Seara said on Thursday, Reuters reported. In July, an appeals judge had granted a motion to halt the case while forensic accountants investigated creditors’ allegations that the company had falsified financial statements.

The board of Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA is trying to assemble a coalition dependent on public sector creditors to pass its restructuring plan in the face of serious opposition from private bondholders, three sources with knowledge of the board’s strategy told Reuters.

Japan’s JFE Holdings Inc and India’s JSW Steel Ltd are lining up a joint bid with a private equity firm for the assets of India’s insolvent Bhushan Steel Ltd, two industry sources familiar with the matter said. Under the plans, JFE would set up a special purpose vehicle with the two partners to manage the assets, Reuters reported. JFE would hold a majority stake in the vehicle, while JSW Steel would operate Bhushan Steel’s plants, said the sources who did not want to be named as the details are not public. JFE already owns a 15 percent stake in JSW.

India’s highest-profile default this year and the government’s plan to inject capital into state-controlled lenders have thrust the nation’s bad debt into the spotlight, Bloomberg News reported. Some global debt funds increasingly like what they see. The nation’s so-called dirty dozen -- 12 large debtors that have been ordered to go through the bankruptcy courts -- are one focus for funds including Bain Capital Credit and alternative investment firm Varde Partners.

Singapore has made “a good start” in its bid to become a debt restructuring hub in the region, with six workout cases filed before its courts after it adopted U.S. Chapter 11-like incentives in local company laws this year, a senior government official said. Indonesian developer PT Bakrieland Development is set to complete its group restructuring after a plan by its unit BLD Investments Pte. was sanctioned by a local judge earlier this month in the first of such cases, Bloomberg News reported.

Already in default and struggling with sinking oil production, Venezuela’s state-run energy firm told its employees to cut costs and expenses by 50 percent in an austerity drive to reflect the broader economic crisis hitting the OPEC nation of 30 million people, Bloomberg News reported.

As Venezuela struggles to make bond payments on time, about a dozen institutions holding the country’s debt are in the early stages of organizing themselves and meeting with attorneys, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The group -- which isn’t yet an official committee -- includes mutual-fund managers Pacific Investment Management Co., T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Amundi Pioneer, Ashmore Group Plc, AllianceBernstein Holding LP, Fidelity Investments, BlackRock Inc. and Allianz SE, as well as the asset-management arms of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Qatari phone carrier Ooredoo QSC decided to bid for the insolvent owner of Turkey’s biggest telecommunications company to rival an offer from Saudi Telecom Co., three people with knowledge of the matter said. Ooredoo will seek to acquire Ojer Telekomunikasyon AS, or Otas, a special purpose vehicle that owns 55 percent of Turk Telekomunikasyon AS, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private, Bloomberg News reported. The Saudi proposal remains on the table, they said.

India has set up a panel to review provisions of the 11-month old bankruptcy law including whether to bar defaulting founders from repurchasing assets, Bloomberg News reported. The committee set up to improve The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will have 14 members and includes officials from the finance ministry, Reserve Bank of India and representatives from industry and accountants group, Corporate Affairs Minister P.P. Chaudhary said in an interview on Monday. The code in force since December 2016 aims to accelerate winding up process of loss-making companies or recovering dues.