Headlines

South Africa’s National Treasury confirmed the appointment of Vodacom Group Ltd. executive Vuyani Jarana as the first permanent chief executive officer of the state-owned carrier since November 2015. Jarana will take the helm at South African Airways when Vodacom releases him of his duties, the Treasury said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The debt-laden airline has failed to make a profit since 2011 and was handed a bailout last month after National Treasury transferred funds to help it avoid a default on its debt to Standard Chartered Plc, Bloomberg News reported.

Global investors are preoccupied by speculation about the European Central Bank’s tapering plans, but another strand in its more than two-year experiment with bond buying is starting to garner attention, the Financial Times reported. Under its quantitative easing policy, the ECB in March began reinvesting all the money of the maturing debt from its €4.2tn balancesheet back into the eurozone bond market. This will accelerate in the coming months and years as more of the central bank’s portfolio of bonds mature.

Steel tycoon Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Steel Ltd. will consider an investment from Japan’s second-biggest mill as the Mumbai-based firm looks to acquire distressed companies in India, according to Joint Managing Director Seshagiri Rao, Bloomberg News reported. JSW shares rallied to a record. India’s largest producer would prefer to acquire mills located in the eastern parts of the country and is open to partnering with JFE Holdings Inc. for acquisitions, Rao said in an interview in Mumbai. “Today we have nothing in mind saying we have to approach JFE or anybody.

Creditors of Grupo Bom Jesus, a Brazilian grain producer that filed for bankruptcy protection in May, have agreed to proposed terms of a 2.6 billion reais ($835 million) debt restructuring, a source with knowledge of the matter said. All classes of creditors voted in favor of the plan in a court in the midwestern town of Rondonópolis, the source added. The approved reorganization plan allows the grain producer to sell assets such as farms to raise cash, Reuters reported.

Regulators might expect that shutting down a bank under suspicion for asset-stripping and fraud is enough to staunch the bleeding. But five months after Tatfondbank PJSC, one of Russia’s biggest regional banks, defaulted on a bond as the regulator seized control, State Street Corp. authorized payment of more than $500,000 in interest and principal to a Kazakh investor that held the debt, the U.S. custodian bank said.

Senior eurozone officials have warned that the continued prosecution in Greece of its former statistics chief is threatening to drive a wedge between Athens and its euro area creditors, only weeks after the country brokered a deal on the next stages of its €86bn bailout, the Financial Times reported. A suspended sentence handed down this week against Andreas Georgiou has prompted consternation among EU policymakers, reviving what many capitals fear is a series of politically motivated trials intended to restore the economic reputation of previous governments.

The Swiss franc’s fall is showing no signs of slowing down, the Financial Times reported. The continued rise of the euro on the back of strong economic data and an upbeat tone to global markets is weighing on the franc, traditionally a haven asset in times of market turmoil. At pixel time, the euro is up by 0.7 per cent on the day at SFr1.1472 – a new post-limit low for the franc. The Swiss currency has fallen 4.2 per cent in the last 10 days as greater domestic demand for foreign assets and positive eurozone figures lured investors towards riskier assets.

Investors have been bracing for a Venezuela debt default for more than a year, but fallout from the country’s widely criticized election last weekend could prove to be the tipping point, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government and state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, also known as PdVSA, together owe $5 billion in principal and interest payments due between now and the end of the year, according to Caracas Capital Markets. The country has $725 million due this month alone, the Venezuelan investment bank said.

The prices of goods leaving the eurozone’s factory gates fell in June for the third month in four, as inflation looks set to remain weak despite a sustained pickup in economic growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The European Union’s statistics agency said Wednesday that producer prices fell 0.1% from May, having also declined in that month and in March. Indeed, the last month-to-month increase in producer prices was recorded in January.

Chinese commodities trader COFCO has asked to participate in an auction in Brazil where a sugar mill owned by India's Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd will be sold as part of an in-court debt restructuring, according to court documents seen by Reuters on Tuesday. COFCO already owns four sugar and ethanol plants in Brazil capable of processing a combined 15 million tonnes of cane per year. The company looked at other potential targets last year, but said prices were too high, Reuters reported.