Headlines

Within the space of six days, Europe has taken crucial decisions on the future of two banks that embody Italy and Spain’s very different approaches to navigating a financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. On one hand there is Banco Popular, Spain’s sixth-largest lender, which was sold to Banco Santander in the early hours of Wednesday after a frantic night’s work by EU and Spanish regulators.

After a long period of uneven and fragile growth, the global economic recovery is finally beginning to look stable, and even strong. The eurozone, having apparently shrugged off the after-effects of the sovereign debt crisis, is now into a solid recovery, the Financial Times reported. The US, notwithstanding some recent weakness in gross domestic product growth, is robust enough that the Federal Reserve is planning to raise interest rates next week. Although China still has big problems with debt, its economy is chugging along fine for now.

International Bank of Azerbaijan, the energy exporting country's biggest lender, said on Wednesday a London court had supported its request to prevent creditors pursuing legal action in the United Kingdom, giving it time to restructure $3.3 billion (£2.5 billion) in debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A similar decision was made by a U.S. court last month.

Mexico’s economy faces “sizable” risks as the U.S. considers renegotiation of the Nafta free-trade agreement and other protectionist policies, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report. Latin America’s second-largest economy has so far proved itself resilient to the rhetoric of Donald Trump, who assumed the presidency in January promising to rewrite the trade deal, Bloomberg News reported. The Mexican peso has recovered recent losses and now trades at levels seen before the U.S. election.

Venezuela has been in talks with Russia about its $1 billion debt restructuring, TASS news agency quoted Venezuela's envoy to Moscow as saying on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Russia has slashed projected revenue by nearly $1 billion to reflect expectations that Venezuela may not make timely payments on bilateral loans, according to a document released by Russia's Audit Chamber on Tuesday. Read more.

Kenya’s government agreed to swap loans it provided to Kenya Airways Ltd. for equity, a conversion that may give the state a controlling stake in the national carrier, Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich said. The government will also guarantee 77 billion shillings ($745 million) of the airline’s debt to lessors and domestic banks, enabling Kenya Airways to extend its loan repayments to 10 years, Rotich told reporters Tuesday in the capital, Nairobi, Bloomberg News reported. The government has yet to decide what amount of loans it will swap, he said.

Noble Group took another tumble on Wednesday following a report the company’s main banks are in last-ditch talks over whether to give the commodities trader more time to find a white knight investor or to force it into restructuring or liquidation. the Financial Times reported. The FT reported banks including HSBC, Société Générale, ABN Amro, Citigroup and ING have appointed legal advisers as they weigh extending a $2bn credit line to the Hong Kong-based, Singapore-listed company to allow it to continue its search for a major new investor.

Singapore’s bond market has seen unprecedented defaults, and a slump in oil prices along with a weak property market are threatening to increase nonpayments this year, Bloomberg News reported. The following is a list of four firms that have Singapore dollar-denominated bonds maturing by the end of next year, and that Bloomberg’s default-risk monitor suggests have the highest odds of failing to repay obligations in the next 12 months among the nation’s companies that aren’t restructuring their debt.

Greek banks made progress in their fight to cut their exposure to doubtful and non-performing loans in the first quarter, data from the country's central bank showed on Tuesday. But corporate, mortgages and consumer lending that has turned bad during years of crisis still accounts for slightly more than half of the banking sector's overall loan book, data released by the Bank of Greece revealed.

The warmth Qatar inspires in the west as a highly-rated borrower turns out to be a local phenomenon. In the Gulf its ambitions to be a regional arbiter have made it deeply unpopular. A diplomatic rift with four of the emirate’s closest Arab neighbours threatens the future of both roles, the Financial Times reported. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have severed air, land and sea ties, accusing Qatar of supporting Islamist militants.