Headlines

China's new chief banking regulator has started with a bang, issuing a flurry of new policy directives during his first month aimed at the industry's knottiest problems, in line with the government’s focus this year on managing financial risk, the Financial Times reported. The China Banking Regulatory Commission has issued seven policy documents in the past 12 days, in what state news agency Xinhua is calling a “regulatory windstorm”.

Predicting the evolution of corporate debt cycles is always tricky. In China it’s doubly hard—because there are two cycles in process. Most concern about the speedy rise of credit across China’s economy is focused on the sheer scale of corporate leverage, now close to 166% of GDP, The Wall Street Journal reported. Less noticed is that parallel debt cycles in the public and private sector are running at different speeds.

South Korea’s debt-ridden Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s second biggest shipyard, was thrown a lifeline after creditors agreed to a massive debt-to-equity swap as part of a bailout plan, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Property and Casualty Insurance Compensation Corporation (PACICC) will participate in the federal government’s review of financial sector regulations next year, including the examination of an act that has not “really been reviewed” in more than a century, the Canadian Underwriter reported.

Those sceptical of Europe’s single currency can always find something to worry about: the biggest concern now is the imminent French presidential election. But aside from politics, which can make anything happen, notice that economic claims that the euro is doomed to fail have quietly vanished from the scene, the Financial Times reported. Even Paul Krugman now allows that the euro has not stopped France from employing more of its people in prime working age than the US, or use its labour about as productively.

Potential rescuers of Japan's Takata Corp have extended talks, already in their 14th month, for a deal to take over the air bag maker at the heart of the auto industry's biggest safety recall, people briefed on the process said. Car-parts maker Key Safety Systems Inc (KSS) and Bain Capital LLC are the preferred bidder for Takata, whose faulty air bags have been blamed for at least 16 deaths worldwide, Reuters reported.

The worst may not be over for everyone in Canada’s oil patch even as crude prices show signs of stability, Bloomberg News reported. While producers are on firmer footing, oilfield service companies are still keeping restructuring advisers and lawyers busy as the effects of nearly three years of depressed oil prices continue to roll through one of Canada’s most important industries.

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s largest shipbuilder, won a reprieve from major bondholder National Pension Service and other lenders, helping avert a payment crisis that had threatened to almost shut the company, Bloomberg News reported. The NPS agreed to restructure 1.55 trillion won ($1.4 billion) of bonds issued by the company after the shipbuilder, the Korea Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of Korea took steps to ensure repayment of the debts, the pension service said in a statement April 16.

Every few decades or so, the world of central banking turns upside down. Over the last 100 years we had systems in which central banks targeted a fixed conversion rate to gold, the supply of money in circulation or, more recently, a rate of expected future inflation. A combination of deep changes in the money markets and financial crises is now conspiring towards another big change, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. This debate is still confined to a small number of experts in central banks, and academics.

The Bahamas resort Baha Mar has taken more than 10 years to open, but on Friday, the $4.2 billion, 1,000-acre development on a half-mile of beachfront in Nassau is expected to finally debut — at least, in part, the International New York Times reported. Baha Mar comprises three hotel brands — Grand Hyatt, SLS Hotels and Rosewood Hotels & Resorts — for a total of 2,300 rooms. Grand Hyatt, with 1,800 rooms, is the largest and will be previewing on opening day; with nightly rates in the mid-$300 range, it’s also the most affordable.