Headlines

Argentina sold 100-year bonds barely a year after settling a protracted legal dispute tied to a $95 billion default, Bloomberg News reported. With the $2.75 billion sale, the government of South America’s second-largest economy joins Mexico, Ireland and the U.K. in issuing debt that matures over a century, which is often particularly attractive to insurers and pension funds seeking to lock in long-term returns. Argentina, for its part, is taking advantage of historically low borrowing costs to finance the budget and pay off debt that’s maturing in the next few years.

Takata Corp. fell by its daily limit after the embattled airbag maker was said to be planning to file for bankruptcy, paving the way for a sale of the 84-year-old Japanese company behind the biggest safety recall in automotive history, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of Takata declined 17 percent, the most since April 27, at the end of trading Monday in Tokyo after going untraded through the regular session as orders to sell outnumbered buyers. The stock has plunged 53 percent this year. The supplier is expected to seek protection in its home country first, with its U.S.

Fifty-six years. That's how long it would take if the one dozen companies the Indian central bank is pushing into bankruptcy were to repay creditors by handing over their entire current operating income, Bloomberg News reported. For India's capital-starved commercial lenders, at the receiving end of much of this $37 billion of unpaid debt, waiting for even 56 days without a resolution isn't an option. Hence the nuclear strike against errant borrowers. The Reserve Bank of India has used authority it received only last month to identify 12 large corporate accounts for action.

The European Central Bank has published a new report on the terms and conditions surrounding its provision of emergency help to eurozone banks – known as Emergency Liquidity Assistance – after criticism that its decisions were not sufficiently transparent, the Financial Times reported. Following increased scrutiny over its provision of ELA since the Greek debt crisis, the ECB has promised to take steps to clarify how it decides when a lender requires additional support.

Adin Fakic, chief executive of Bosnia's oldest dairy, likens the crisis engulfing his biggest client Agrokor to an earthquake. The epicentre is in Croatia, but the tremors are felt across the farmlands of neighbouring Bosnia and beyond, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. For a decade, Fakic's Milkos has built up business with Croatian supermarket chain Konzum, which now buys roughly 35 percent of its annual output of some 20 million litres of milk.

Brazilian banks are wrestling with a growing pile of assets they’d rather not own: at least 13.8 billion reais ($4.2 billion) of cars, real estate, equipment and other collateral seized when borrowers defaulted on their loans, Bloomberg News reported. The total surged 42 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier at eight of the nation’s biggest lenders as fallout from the worst recession in Brazil’s history continues to weigh on banks’ finances, according to the companies’ financial statements.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (Isda) will meet on Thursday to decide whether an extension of one of Noble Group’s loan facilities will trigger a payout on credit-default swaps (CDS) linked to the struggling commodities trader, the Financial Times reported. The “general interest question” was submitted on Monday and the derivatives trade body accepted it for review by one of its determinations committees on Tuesday.

When Azerbaijan’s biggest bank wanted to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from funds in neighboring Kazakhstan, it headed 2,700 miles in the opposite direction to Ireland, Bloomberg News reported. The International Bank of Azerbaijan, or IBA, used obscure Dublin-based entities to sell bonds that were bought by state-linked funds in Kazakhstan about three years ago. Now, the Baku-based lender has defaulted and its long-time chief executive officer is in jail for embezzlement, while a $22 billion national pension fund across the Caspian Sea in Almaty is probing its investment in the debts.

Lanco Infratech Ltd confirmed on Saturday that India's central bank had directed the company's lead lender IDBI Bank to initiate a corporate insolvency resolution process under the country's bankruptcy laws, Reuters reported. Lanco is among 12 companies that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ordered lenders to take to bankruptcy court as it strives to cut the country's $150 billion in soured debt, sources told Reuters on Friday.

India's central bank has asked lenders to initiate bankruptcy proceedings against a dozen companies, including Essar Steel, Bhushan Steel Ltd, Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. This follows a change enacted in laws last month that gives the Reserve Bank of India greater power to address the $150 billion stressed loan problem plaguing growth in Asia's third-largest economy, Reuters reported. This week, the RBI said it had identified 12 of the country's biggest loan defaulters.