Headlines

China is returning to international bond markets for the first time in 13 years, with a $2 billion offering of U.S. dollar bonds that will allow the world’s second-largest economy to flex its financial muscle in the wake of its just completed Communist Party Congress. Bankers have begun marketing China’s five- and 10-year bonds to investors, primarily in Asia and Europe, and the securities are expected to price on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Air Berlin is in talks with Thomas Cook airline Condor, as well as Britain’s easyJet over the sale of some of its remaining assets, as time runs out for a deal to be done, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Air Berlin had been in exclusive talks with Lufthansa and easyjet, but while a deal was agreed with Lufthansa for large parts of its business, talks with easyJet continued over the weekend, Reuters reported. “Air Berlin is in talks with two bidders - easyjet and Condor. The race is wide open,” the source said.

Lufthansa plans to scrap the brand name of Austrian airline Niki as it integrates the carrier into its Eurowings budget business, a board member said on Tuesday. Lufthansa signed a 210 million euro ($247 million) deal this month to take over insolvent Air Berlin’s Niki and LG Walter units, plus some short-haul planes, to cement its position as Germany’s biggest carrier and expand its Eurowings budget brand, Reuters reported.

Nigeria’s Senate voted in favour on Tuesday of launching an investigation into the default on a $1.2 billion loan earlier this year by Etisalat Nigeria and into how the funds were used. Etisalat Nigeria, now called 9mobile, took out a syndicated loan from 13 Nigerian banks but failed to make repayments earlier this year, Reuters reported. “The Senate is aware of allegations that the loans had been diverted to other uses not related to the business, as there was no evidence of what the company did with the loans,” the upper house said in an order paper published on Twitter.

Eurobank has become the latest Greek bank to tap capital markets, selling a covered bond that bankers say is designed to be eligible for ECB purchases, the Financial Times reported. The €500m bond, which matures in 2020, was priced this afternoon at a yield of just below 3 per cent. It represents the lender’s first foray into international markets in three years. Covered bonds, a centuries-old form of European financing, are issued by banks and secured against pools of loans. As such, they provide investors with additional security in the event of default.

A measure of business conditions in the eurozone fell more than expected this month, with executives in the services sector reporting a slowdown in activity growth, the Financial Times reported. The eurozone composite purchasing managers index slipped to 55.9 in October from 56.7 in the previous month, IHS Markit data show. That was well under the consensus estimate in a Reuters poll of 56.5. Services PMI slipped to a two-month low of 54.9 from 55.8 in September. The factory gauge rose to 58.6 from 58.1. Readings above 50 suggest executives are reporting growth in activity.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena shares will resume trading on Wednesday 10 months after they were suspended when Italy's fourth-largest bank failed to raise capital to bolster its finances, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Monte dei Paschi said on Tuesday that Italy's market watchdog had approved a prospectus for its re-listing. The bank's stock is expected to trade below the 6.49 euro price paid by the state in August when it injected 3.85 billion euros into Monte dei Paschi, implying a large paper loss for the country's taxpayers.

Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA faced two setbacks from the government on Monday in its efforts to pull off the country’s biggest-ever in-court debt restructuring, Reuters reported. Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel rejected the company’s request to swap billions of reais in regulatory fines for new investments. Anatel said in a statement that the “unsatisfactory” progress of Oi’s reorganization, now in its 16th month, raised doubts about the company’s ability to honor investment commitments resulting from a fine-for-investment swap.

Offshore rig company Seadrill has received two additional non-binding proposals from bondholders for a debt restructuring after the Norwegian firm filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, court documents show. The two indications of interest came from bondholders seeking alternatives to the firm’s own plan, Seadrill said in documents submitted late on Friday.

Noble Group Ltd.’s sale of its oil business to Vitol Group probably buys the embattled commodity trader time. But even if it survives long enough to complete the deal, there’s still an almighty struggle ahead: the near-inevitable restructuring of over $3 billion in debt, Bloomberg News reported. Analysts at BNP Paribas SA, Nomura Holdings Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and iFast Corp. all predicted after the sale was announced on Monday that the Hong Kong-based company would be forced to restructure its debt.