Headlines

New Zealand’s High Court placed insurance firm CBL Insurance Ltd, the main subsidiary of CBL Corporation Ltd, in interim liquidation on Friday after a request from the country’s central bank, Reuters reported. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand regulates the country’s insurance sector and CBL disclosed earlier this month that the bank was reviewing the adequacy of the company’s reserves in its French construction insurance business.

European authorities will close ABLV Bank AS, the Latvian lender facing U.S. accusations of money laundering tied to North Korea that’s central to the political scandal shaking the euro zone this week, Bloomberg News reported. The European Central Bank initiated the radical step to stem the turmoil engulfing one of the currency area’s smallest members, saying Latvia’s third-largest lender was failing or likely to fail. It followed an ECB freeze on ABLV payments after the allegations triggered an exodus of deposits.

Mozambique plans to meet holders of about $2 billion of its debt and outline restructuring proposals in London next month, more than a year after it defaulted, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said. Its Eurobonds gained to the highest since they were sold in April 2016, Bloomberg News reported. “The presentation will provide to holders of the country’s direct and guaranteed external commercial indebtedness an update on recent fiscal and macroeconomic developments in Mozambique,” the ministry said Thursday in an emailed statement.

Theresa May has promised “tough new rules” next month that will aim to stop companies draining away their capital while neglecting their deficit-laden pension schemes. It’s a response to a series of scandals involving companies that have collapsed leaving pension holes behind them, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The latest of these involves Carillion, which failed last month after a series of writedowns undermined the outsourcing group. At their 2016 valuation, the group’s pension schemes had a deficit of almost £1bn.

Italy's economy is forecast to grow by a decent rate of 1.5 percent this year, but that still lags the wider eurozone's estimated 2 percent, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. The economy is smaller than it was at the start of the economic downturn in 2008, unemployment remains at a high 10.8 percent and wage growth is below 1 percent. Household savings, long held as the counterweight to Italy's enormous government debt, have dwindled.

Lazard Freres SAS is wrapping up talks with the Mozambican government for a planned meeting with creditors, said the bank that’s advising authorities on debt restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. The nation’s Eurobonds gained. “We are finalizing our discussions with the authorities and should be able to inform all creditors very shortly,” Michele Lamarche, managing director at Lazard in Paris, said in reply to emailed questions Thursday.

The UK’s oldest peer-to-peer service is warning investors that defaults on its recent loans will be running at a higher rate than during the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. Peer-to-peer investing offers a trade off to investors: if they lend money directly to riskier borrowers, they can get a high rate of return on their cash. But Zopa, the dominant peer-to-peer lender in the UK consumer market with £3bn of lending, is anticipating falling investor returns despite increasing its volume of high-risk loans.

The Pensions Regulator is considering pursuing individuals connected with Carillion as it weighs using its powers to recover cash for the collapsed outsourcing group’s indebted pension schemes, the Financial Times reported. The regulator began an investigation into Carillion on January 18, three days after the group was placed into compulsory liquidation with an estimated £900m funding shortfall in its pension scheme.

Euro zone government bond yields dipped on Thursday after a survey showed German business confidence fell in February, offsetting an earlier rise in yields after the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting revived fears of inflation. German business confidence fell more than expected in February but remained high, a survey showed on Thursday, suggesting that Europe’s biggest economy is set for solid growth in the first quarter of this year, Reuters reported. Euro zone government bond yields, which had risen in early trade, fell 1-2 basis points across the board after the release.

A Latvian bank threatened with U.S. sanctions for allegedly conducting a global money-laundering scheme, including for companies connected to North Korea’s missile program, is seeking more than a half billion dollars in government bailout money in an effort to stay afloat, The Wall Street Journal reported. The accusations against ABLV Bank by the U.S. Treasury Department have ignited one of Europe’s biggest money-laundering scandals in years and shined a spotlight on Washington’s efforts to go after Eastern European banks it says have ties to Russian money laundering.