Headlines

The European Parliament is preparing to toughen EU plans to police London’s euro clearing business after Brexit, raising the risk that the UK might lose the lucrative activity, the Financial Times reported. The parliament and national governments will next month begin discussing proposals that would require UK clearing houses handling large volumes of euro-denominated contracts to comply with EU rules and accept European supervision. The plans were presented in June by the European Commission and have already raised hackles in the City of London.

PDG Realty SA, the largest Brazilian homebuilder to have filed for bankruptcy protection, reached a non-binding agreement with bank creditors as part of restructuring talks, the company said in a filing late on Friday. PDG filed for bankruptcy protection in February after citing a severe cash crunch and onerous debt of 7.3 billion reais ($2.33 billion), Reuters reported. It presented an in-court reorganization plan on June 7.

Russia’s largest oil company disclosed another advance payment to Venezuela’s state producer after the U.S. sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. Rosneft PJSC paid $1.02 billion to Petroleos de Venezuela SA in April for future crude supplies, the state-run Russian producer said in an earnings statement on Friday. That follows advance payments of about $1.5 billion in 2016 and comes a day after Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin pledged to stick with investment plans in the crisis-torn Latin American nation.

The U.K. may be headed for the door, but its lawmakers and civil servants in Brussels still have their work cut out as the European Union overhauls financial-services rules that will affect firms in London even after Brexit, Bloomberg News reported. Negotiations will resume soon on wide-ranging banking legislation that translates global standards into EU law, as well as a swathe of new rules on everything from pensions to covered bonds and derivatives clearing. All this matters to the U.K.

A strengthening eurozone economy, expectations of monetary policy tightening, and tumbles in the US dollar have all combined to propel the euro to its strongest level in three years, the Financial Times reported. The currency’s real effective exchange rate is up nearly 4 per cent since late June, when Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, jolted markets with a reminder that the ECB has vanquished the threat of deflation.

Asian investors, wary that the region’s stock markets and currencies have run up too far too fast and wondering whether it is time to take some money off the table, are finding that their concerns are not being reflected in major gauges of volatility and fear, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. These indicators are supposed to signal red, or at least orange, when stocks are overvalued and risks – whether economic, corporate or political - are building. Currently, they all suggest it is still safe to be invested in riskier assets.

The directors of small British construction businesses are lending them more money to plug a funding gap as banks set tighter lending criteria and major contractors delay payments, a survey showed on Monday. Directors lent the companies 38 million pounds in 2015/16, up from 29.7 million pounds in 2013/14, said online finance market Funding Options, which surveyed electricians, plumbers, plasterers, carpenters, decorators, scaffolders and roofing businesses, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Chinese courts handled more than 4,700 bankruptcy cases in the first seven months of 2017, up "steadily" on the same period of 2016 as Beijing stepped up its campaign against 'zombie firms', a senior official with the judiciary said on Thursday. "The difficulties of launching a bankruptcy case have been effectively eased," He Xiaorong, a senior director at China's Supreme People's Court, told a news briefing.

The standoff between Dana Gas PJSC and its bondholders took a fresh twist after the Middle Eastern energy explorer that’s trying to void $700 million of its own debt was said to believe investors may even have to pay the company, Bloomberg News reported. The Sharjah-based gas producer says a court battle with holders of the Islamic securities, or sukuk, may see it having to return less than 10 percent of the amount it borrowed, according to a person familiar with Dana Gas’s own analysis.

Venezuela’s state oil company, ensnared in the political crisis gripping the country, is asking bond investors for a temporary waiver from financial reporting requirements because it can’t complete the documents on time, Bloomberg News reported. Petroleos de Venezuela asked trustee Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. for an extension to Aug. 11, at which point it expects to make the documents available, according to a letter dated July 31 that the bank sent to holders of notes due in 2020.