Headlines

Investors betting Azerbaijan’s debt problems will be contained at the nation’s biggest bank could be in for a shock, Bloomberg News reported. Sovereign yields may jump 40 basis points next week as more details emerge about the International Bank of Azerbaijan’s plan to swap its defaulted debt into new sovereign notes, according to Raiffeisen Bank International AG. On Thursday, Moody’s Investors Service warned the restructuring was “credit negative” for the state oil champion, known as Socar, which keeps about 40 percent of its cash and equivalents at the defaulted lender.

Brazil’s real, stocks and bonds tumbled as a fresh political crisis ensnared President Michel Temer and threatened to derail an agenda designed to pull Latin America’s largest economy out of its deepest recession on record, Bloomberg News reported. Trading on the Ibovespa briefly came to a halt Thursday, sinking the most since 2008, with state-owned companies from Petroleo Brasileiro SA to Banco do Brasil SA among the worst losses. The real posted its biggest slide since 1999 even after the central bank intervened to support the currency.

France’s troublesome unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level since the depths of the eurozone crisis, with an impressive drop from 10 per cent to 9.6 per cent in the three months to March, the Financial Times reported. Double digit unemployment has been a persistent bug bear of the French economy, where the jobless rate has climbed above the eurozone’s average and is well above Germany’s record-low levels around 3 per cent. The March drop was ahead of expectations of no change and is the lowest since 2012.

Brazil's electricity watchdog Aneel expects a further delay in the construction of 6,000 kilometers of power lines licensed to Abengoa SA, raising concern over the reliability of the country's grid as a massive new dam comes online, according to an internal document seen by Reuters. Abengoa halted construction of the transmission lines in 2015 amid a financial crisis at its headquarters in Spain which was followed by a bankruptcy filing at its units operating in Brazil, Reuters reported.

Claimants against Lehman Brothers’ main European arm will receive at least £5bn in interest payments on top of previously awarded claims after the UK’s most senior court ruled they should receive the statutory interest that has built up over the last eight years, Reuters reported. PwC, the administrator of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), has already paid out 100% of creditors' original £11.5bn in claims but had sought direction from the courts on which creditors should receive extra money that has built up since those claims were met.

Oman plans to sell $2 billion of Islamic bonds this month as it seeks to trim a large budget deficit caused by lower oil revenue, Finance Minister Darwish Al Balushi said. The crude exporter’s budget deficit will reach 12 percent of economic output this year and it will continue to narrow in the coming years, Al Balushi said in an interview Wednesday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the sidelines of the Islamic Development Bank’s annual meeting, Bloomberg News reported.

Greek unions staged a nationwide strike on Wednesday to protest against fresh austerity measures that parliament is being asked to approve as part of the country’s €86bn international bailout, the Financial Times reported. Civil servants and staff at state hospitals and public utilities took part in the 24-hour walkout, which disrupted international flights and other transport across the country.

Italian regional lenders Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca may need to raise capital privately to cover loan losses to win European Union approval for a state bailout they have requested, six sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The two banks, together with fellow bailout candidate Monte dei Paschi di Siena, are stuck in rescue talks with European authorities that are keen to limit the amount of taxpayer money used to help ailing lenders in accordance with new EU rules on banking crises, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The International Monetary Fund warned Saudi Arabia on Wednesday not to tighten fiscal policy too fast, saying rapid cuts to the government's budget deficit could damage the economy, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Tim Callen, head of an IMF team which held annual consultations with Saudi officials last week, said Riyadh's goal of balancing its budget was appropriate. Low oil prices in the past couple of years have pushed it deep into the red.

Air France-KLM has ruled out stepping in to save near-bankrupt Alitalia, with its chief executive telling shareholders on Tuesday that its past experience of cross-shareholdings and a failed merger plan would discourage it from investing directly in Italy again, Reuters reported. In 2008 Air France-KLM walked away from a planned takeover of Alitalia after talks with the Italian carrier's unions broke down. Earlier this month Alitalia went into administration for the second time in less than a decade after workers rejected a restructuring plan.