Headlines

Investors dismayed at being forced to accept a 20 percent principal writedown in a debt restructuring of Azerbaijan’s biggest bank were met with a warning that it may be shut down if creditors fail to back the plan, with the finance minister saying the lender never had the benefit of full sovereign guarantee, Bloomberg News reported. The International Bank of Azerbaijan proposed swapping $3.3 billion of its foreign-currency debt and deposits into a mix of new sovereign securities and the lender’s own bonds, according to a presentation in London on Tuesday.

Eurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund are exploring a compromise plan for Greece’s bailout that would provide much-needed funds this summer while delaying sensitive talks on debt relief, the Financial Times reported. Diplomats said the proposal, put forward by the IMF, would involve the fund taking a formal decision to join Greece’s bailout with the proviso it would not provide any money until the euro area gives further details on how it is prepared to ease Athens’ debts.

Irish airline Ryanair is ready to deploy up to 30 planes in Italy to replace capacity lost if Alitalia collapses or is restructured but does not want to buy the struggling Italian carrier, Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday. Ryanair's view mirrors the stance of rival easyJet and British Airways owner International Airlines Group(IAG), which have both said they are interested in replacing Alitalia capacity but say they do not want to buy the airline.

Troubled engineering conglomerate Odebrecht SA’s oil and gas arm said late Tuesday it has entered into an agreement with a group of creditors to restructure its financial debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. Odebrecht Óleo e Gás said it filed the reorganization plan, covering $5 billion in debt, with a Rio de Janeiro court. Creditors representing more than 60% of the claims accepted the plan, the company said in a statement. Odebrecht SA signed a multibillion anticorruption settlement with Brazilian, U.S.

In the eurozone, sometimes everything old is new again. Witness how an idea for creating safe eurozone bonds devised in the heat of the sovereign crisis six years ago is reappearing as a solution to a very different problem, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. That’s right: ESBies are making a comeback. In 2011, a team of economists proposed the idea of European Safe Bonds as a replacement for German Bunds and safe-haven investment in the eurozone. The concept is similar to an asset-backed security.

Greece’s creditors failed to reach a deal on debt relief during seven hours of talks on Monday night, leaving the eurozone locked in a race to finish negotiations before Athens faces crippling debt repayments in July, the Financial Times reported. Talks in the Eurogroup broke down as Germany, Greece and the International Monetary sparred over the next stages of Greece’s €86bn bailout, and notably over how to ease the country’s debts once its rescue programme expires in 2018.

There were sighs of relief in Germany when France elected Emmanuel Macron as president, but his victory also triggered a debate over his reform plans for the eurozone, the Financial Times reported. His critics claim that President Macron wishes to turn the currency union into a transfer union that is against Germany’s interests. His supporters are calling on Germany to back Mr Macron or face the possibility of a victory for Marine Le Pen in the next presidential election. Both positions are unreasonable. Mr Macron should be given time to develop his proposals for eurozone reform.

A troubled lender from Azerbaijan is shaping up to be a battleground for U.S. and European investors facing big losses on bondholdings. State-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan, or IBA, filed for bankruptcy in New York on May 11, battered by bad loans and the oil-price rout. It wants to restructure $3.3 billion of debt to help it get back on its feet, according to a proposal accompanying the bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Portugal’s recovery from the eurozone’s debt crisis reached a milestone on Monday as the EU said the country, which needed an international bailout, was no longer in breach of the bloc’s budget rules, the Financial Times reported. Brussels’ verdict underlines Portugal’s turnround after its rescue by eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund in 2011 and reflects the improving economic environment for the single currency area, where growth has picked up and unemployment is at an eight-year low.

The founder of LeEco, a Chinese Netflix-to-Tesla-like conglomerate, has stepped down as the CEO of the group's main listed unit, as the company begins to streamline and cut debt after rapid expansion led to a cash crunch, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Jia Yueting, who will remain as chairman and CEO of LeEco, envisions the group maintaining its separate unlisted automotive unit but rolling all other areas of business into Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing, according to a transcript of his remarks to journalists on Sunday.