Headlines

India’s plans to expand its corporate bond market are running up against a yearlong credit crisis, in another obstacle for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to jumpstart a sputtering economy, Bloomberg News reported. Sales of rupee bonds rated below AAA have halved so far this year to 691 billion rupees ($9.6 billion) as a wave of debt defaults and a funding crunch in the shadow banking sector make investors reluctant to buy riskier notes.

Arabtec Holding PJSC shares soared in Dubai after the company started talks to merge with Abu Dhabi-based Trojan Holding LLC, Bloomberg News reported. The stock advanced as much as 13%, the steepest intraday gain since July 2017, as Arabtec said the entities began a study to potentially combine their construction businesses and may merge after technical, financial and legal reviews. It didn’t provide further details. The talks come as a property-market slowdown weighs on companies in the United Arab Emirates.

Even if the European Central Bank delivers a dose of monetary stimulus as widely expected on Thursday, the euro could still climb, analysts warn, leading banks to advise clients to trim any bets against the currency, the Financial Times reported. Typically, interest-rate cuts and blasts of supportive bond buying drag down currencies. But levels of conviction that ECB president Mario Draghi will unleash a heavy-hitting package of measures are so high, that any sense the central bank has not gone far enough could be brutal.

Holders of credit insurance on Thomas Cook Group Plc are drawing up plans to potentially block the U.K. travel agent’s $1.1 billion rescue in order to ensure they get a payout, Bloomberg News reported. The group of hedge funds, including Sona Asset Management and XAIA Investment GmbH, may vote against a bailout led by Fosun Tourism Group at a creditor meeting on Sept. 18 if they don’t secure their payment before then, according to people familiar with the plan. Fosun’s rescue includes a debt-for-equity swap that could prevent compensation on their default insurance.

Passenger car sales have contracted for 10 straight months, plunging to 115,957 units in August, a 41% drop from the previous year—the biggest decline on record. Automakers are cutting investment and production; hundreds of dealerships have shut down, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Nationwide, job losses in the sector, which employs more than 32 million people directly and indirectly, have climbed to more than 580,000 in the past 18 months, according to estimates from labor unions and auto dealers. R.C.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi hopes to end his eight-year term with a bang. Some fear it could conclude with a fizzle, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the run-up to his departure on Oct. 31, the central banker has signaled plans for a large, final burst of monetary stimulus to prop up a eurozone economy that is tottering under the pressure of trade tensions. But critical voices are multiplying, including a growing number from the ECB’s own 25-member rate-setting committee. Mr.

Things that keep China’s top leaders up at night: a stalling economy, a bruising trade war and, increasingly, pigs. Specifically, a shortage of pigs, which is fast becoming a national crisis, the International New York Times reported. The price of pork has been rising for months, and it is now nearly 50 percent higher than it was a year ago, data published on Tuesday showed. Consumers are frustrated, and officials are quietly expressing alarm as they fight the outbreak of a disease that is devastating the country’s pig population and causing the shortage.

BMW would reduce output at its plant in Oxford by eliminating a work shift should the UK opt for a hard Brexit, according to its chief financial officer, The Irish Times reported. The German carmaker already plans to completely halt production on the October 31st deadline when Britain is expected to leave the European Union, as well as on November 1st, CFO Nicolas Peter said at the Frankfurt motor show.

Property developers, medical doctors and publicans were prominent among the 43 names published today on the tax defaulters list, which outlined details of €9.8 million worth of settlements in the three months to the end of June, The Irish Times reported. The list of names published by Revenue represents just a fraction of the €118 million collected in settlements during the period as a result of interventions, audits and investigations by the tax authorities, it said. Details of cases involving court penalties totalling more than €1.1 million were also published.

European capital markets are still too small to provide enough funding for companies, which continue to rely on banks, an EU document said, urging new measures to unlock financial resources and spur funding through equities and corporate debt, Reuters reported. The document, seen by Reuters, was prepared by the Finnish presidency of the European Union before a meeting of EU finance ministers on Friday in Helsinki that will address the matter.