Headlines

Taiwan's TransAsia Airways Corp said on Tuesday it would wind down operations and suspend all scheduled flights, failing to recover from two plane crashes in almost three years, Reuters reported. In addition to struggling to overcome safety concerns raised by Taiwan's regulator, the island's third-largest carrier has been hit by intense competition, reporting losses for the previous six quarters. It shut down its low-cost offering, V Air, last month.

The liquidator of Rush Credit Union is expected to market its loan book for sale this week after the High Court ordered the winding up of the community lender in north Co Dublin, the Irish Times reported. McStay Luby will seek to find a buyer for the loan book, which is understood to have a face value of about €9 million and comprises about 1,500 loans. The liquidators will also seek to sell the credit union’s offices in the villages of Rush and Lusk. These were valued last year at €900,000.

The European Central Bank began buying billions of euros worth of corporate bonds earlier this year in a high-profile experiment aimed at spurring private investment. So far, the spending hasn’t materialized, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since June, the ECB has bought €44.3 billion (around $46.9 billion) in corporate debt. Borrowing costs have tumbled, and debt issuance is up. But the very reason the ECB started buying the bonds—a weak economy—is crimping the program’s success. The ECB buys bonds to stimulate tame growth with corporate spending.

Britain has cut its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to just below 8 per cent in a renewed attempt to return the lender to full private ownership over the next year, the Irish Times reported. Lloyds said in a statement on Tuesday the government had reduced its stake in the bank by about 1 percentage point to 7.99 per cent. UK Financial Investments Limited, which manages the government’s stake in the bailed-out bank, last month resumed share sales that were shelved almost a year ago because of market turbulence.

The liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) are set to issue an initial payment to unsecured creditors within a fortnight, including a cheque of about €275 million for the State, the Irish Times reported. However, a group of junior bondholders in the bank, who refused to share in the group’s losses during the crisis, face waiting at least two years before they discover how much of the €285 million they are owned will be repaid.

Spanish renewable energy and engineering firm Abengoa SA has asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to enjoin legal action and future claims by creditors who are unsatisfied with a high-stakes plan to restructure $10 billion of debt, Reuters reported. Abengoa, a Sevilla-based company with a global renewable energy footprint, put its U.S. subsidiaries in Chapter 11 protection this year and filed for Chapter 15 protection from creditors of non-U.S. businesses while it thrashed out a refinancing deal to avoid becoming Spain's largest-ever corporate failure.

Effective implementation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code can potentially release about Rs 25,000 crore of capital over the next 4-5 years currently locked in bad loans, according to a report. "If implemented successfully, the code will help India's banking sector catch up with or even exceed the recovery rates of 32 per cent and average time taken of 2.8 years in other emerging markets," said an Assocham-Crisil joint study. It said the capital released can be deployed for other productive lending which could help in credit expansion.

Embattled Saudi construction firm Mohammad Al Mojil Group (MMG) said it has written directly to Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman explaining that it may not be able to continue operating, Reuters reported. It was unclear if the privately owned company was seeking financial or other assistance from the government. In a short statement via the stock exchange on Monday, MMG said its letter to the prince also addressed constraints imposed by banks and the government, and legal restrictions that were blocking company leaders from speaking publicly about proposed solutions to its problems.

The Brazilian government lowered its 2017 annual gross domestic product forecast to 1.0% from 1.6%, a sign that Latin America’s largest economy is struggling to rebound from a deep recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. Fabio Kanczuk, secretary of economic policy for Brazil’s Finance Ministry, made the announcement Monday at a press conference in Brasília. Low oil prices and the lingering effects of a massive corruption scandal have hammered the key oil-and-gas sector, as well as state-run Petróleo Brasileiro SA.

South Korea's Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd said on Tuesday it decided to sell part of its container ship business to Korea Line Corp for 37 billion Korean won ($31.38 million). Korea Line will buy Hanjin's Pacific routes shipping business, relevant client management information, units in seven countries including the United States, China and Vietnam, as well as assets and manpower related to logistics systems, Hanjin said in a regulatory filing. Hanjin said the sale, which will be completed on Jan. 5, 2017, is to secure funds to pay off creditors.