Headlines

Germany on Monday voiced support for Greece to stay in the euro zone and the European Commission dispatched a senior official to Athens to persuade it to take on further reforms to salvage its bailout accord, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, meanwhile, remained firm that as a lender the IMF could not cut any special deals for the crisis-hit country, which has received three bailouts since 2010.

Investors expecting a deal this year in Tata Steel's talks to merge its European assets with Germany's Thyssenkrupp risk disappointment, given complications associated with the Indian-owned firm's British pension scheme. Tata and Thyssenkrupp shares have firmed on hopes a merger would trigger European steel capacity cuts, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The woes of Singaporean energy-services provider Ezra Holdings Ltd. are a stark reminder to the city’s biggest banks of the threat souring oil and gas loans pose to their earnings. A writedown flagged by Ezra recently has refocused attention on the debt-repayment problems marine-services firms are facing, fueling concerns that lenders may have to set aside more money to cover loan losses, Bloomberg News reported. Fourth-quarter results due this week from DBS Group Holdings Ltd.

Nowhere are China’s rusted-out industries worse than in Liaoning, a province that’s slumped into outright recession and where officials have admitted to years of inflating fiscal revenue data, Bloomberg News reported. Liaoning is also a showcase for how long a road China faces to create a world-class bond market. For all its problems, the district pays little more than its peers to borrow. On the corporate side, authorities’ reluctance to let more insolvent enterprises go under means a limited role for the market, with financiers willing to restructure their debts on the sidelines.

Greece and its lenders should quickly approve a review of reforms the indebted country must take in return for unlocking new loans, a senior European Union official said on Sunday, warning of financial instability in the euro zone if the issue lingers, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "Now is not the time to turn the clocks back to financial instability," Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission and the EU's financial services chief, told Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Investors expecting a deal this year in Tata Steel's talks to merge its European assets with Germany's Thyssenkrupp risk disappointment, given complications associated with the Indian-owned firm's British pension scheme. Tata and Thyssenkrupp shares have firmed on hopes a merger would trigger European steel capacity cuts, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

A welcome dose of good news for the Italian economy. Annual industrial production in the eurozone’s third largest economy accelerated at its best pace since 2010, raising hopes of an uptick in economic growth for a country beset by a host of political and banking woes in recent months, the Financial Times reported. Overall output rose 1.6 per cent in 2016 – the best annual performance in six years. Industrial production accounts for just under a third of Italian GDP.

France isn’t Greece. But as investors worry about the impending presidential election, French bonds have shifted from trading like haven German bunds to be treated more like troubled Italian debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The reassessment of France—from part of the eurozone’s financial core toward its periphery—shows the heightened concern about far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen winning the presidency. The effects on trading were visible even as fears about France receded this week.

The abandoned farmhouse surrounded by acres of prime Tuscan vineyards, known as the Aquilaia estate, stands as a monument to failure—to the tens of billions of euros in bad loans that sank the world’s oldest bank, Bloomberg News reported. Born at about the same time as Michelangelo, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena crumbled under the weight of a lending binge whose legacy has become the headache of Italian taxpayers after the government said in December it would take it over. While the bank says it has already accounted for much of the potential losses, skeptics say the signs aren’t promising.

Greek debt sold off sharply on Thursday amid fears the country’s bailout lenders will not be able to bridge their differences in time to lend Athens the €7bn it needs to avoid bankruptcy, the Financial Times reported. The International Monetary Fund has refused to sign on to the aid programme unless EU authorities grant further debt relief to Greece, but the rift deepened after the head of the eurozone’s €500bn rescue fund dismissed the IMF’s demand. Eurozone finance ministry deputies were locked in meetings on Thursday night attempting to resolve the dispute.