Headlines

Canada's Hudson's Bay Co has hired a debt restructuring adviser to review potential options for combining its business with debt-laden U.S. department store operator Neiman Marcus Group, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is the clearest indication yet that Neiman Marcus' $4.7 billion debt pile poses significant challenges to a merger between Hudson's Bay, owner of the Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue retail chains, and private equity-owned Neiman Marcus, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Creditors of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide will have to wait years to find out whether they will recover all that they are owed, as the cost of liquidating the institution that was established to wind down the failed lenders has soared to €222.6 million, the Irish Times reported. The liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) said on Friday that they held €1.919 billion of net cash as of February 6th, the fourth anniversary of the Government’s decision to liquidate the company.

A Chinese regulator announced on Friday that it had taken disciplinary measures against the Anbang Insurance Group, a financial behemoth that has tried to invest tens of billions of dollars overseas, for the improper sale of two investment products, the International New York Times reported. The moves by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission come against a backdrop of broader worries about the country’s financial system, in addition to ones about the insurance industry.

A former top official of Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht SA testified that he was asked in 2014 to bribe the then-head of Mexican state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, according to a document filed with Brazil’s Supreme Court as part of a broader corruption investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The World Bank has warned that Chinese local governments remain addicted to off-budget borrowing, despite Beijing’s efforts to impose fiscal discipline on localities and curb ballooning debt, the Financial Times reported. Runaway growth of local government debt is widely seen as a huge risk for China’s economy and financial system. Provinces, cities and counties borrowed heavily to spend on infrastructure to keep economic growth humming after the 2008 financial crisis.

Loss-making airline Alitalia, which asked to be put under special administration on Tuesday, had debts of around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) as of the end of February, Italy's government said on Saturday, Reuters reported. In a document marking the opening of the special administration process and the appointment of three commissioners to run the airline, the government said Alitalia had current liabilities of around 2.3 billion euros and assets worth 921 million.

Central bankers, economists, politicians and pundits who favour accommodative monetary policy are the targets of various criticisms, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. That inflation would follow monetary stimulus was the main complaint immediately following the financial crisis. This critique has grown less popular as inflation has failed to arrive.

State Bank of India, the country’s largest, sees a "positive turnaround" in the nation’s bad loan mess after the government implements a new rule aimed at resolving the problem, chairman of the lender said. "The non-performing asset cycle is different this time," Arundhati Bhattacharya, State Bank’s top executive, said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Yokohama, Japan. "Many assets are good quality and required by the economy -- when growth turns up, they will perform again,” Bloomberg News reported.

Retail Acquisitions, the company owned by former bankrupt Dominic Chappell and through which he made his ill-fated 2015 purchase of BHS, is to be put into liquidation, more than a year after the department store chain fell into administration, the Financial Times reported. Insolvency proceedings were launched against Retail Acquisitions last October as part of a wider attempt to track the assets of the failed high street group, but had stalled amid appeals from Mr Chappell.

No debt relief measures are being readied for Greece, Germany's Finance Ministry said on Thursday after the Handelsblatt business daily reported measures were under consideration, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The implementation of reforms that Greece agreed to in return for aid would help ensure the sustainability of the country's debt, the ministry said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters. "No debt relief is being prepared," it added.