Headlines

Property developer China Evergrande Group has been ordered to liquidate by a Hong Kong court, bringing an end to the yearslong saga of a company whose default rippled through the world’s second-largest economy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The liquidation order came despite an 11th-hour push by the company’s creditors to reach a deal over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter. It comes more than two years after the company defaulted on its dollar bonds, becoming one of the first dominoes to fall in China’s beleaguered real-estate sector.

An estimated 233 home developers in China filed for bankruptcy last year, according to the China Real Estate Association, the Taiwan News reported. The highest number of bankruptcies was in Zhejiang Province, with 36 cases accounting for 15.45% of the nation’s total. Hunan and Guangdong provinces were second and third respectively. However, the report added the number of bankruptcies for 2023 was the lowest since 2020. There were 408 home developers who filed for bankruptcy in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, 343 in 2021, and 308 in 2022.

China’s deflation pressures are likely to continue for at least another six months on weak demand and as the property crisis continues to sap confidence within the economy, Bloomberg News reported. A measure of economy-wide prices called the gross domestic product deflator is expected to decline for at least two more quarters, according to 12 of 19 economists in a new Bloomberg survey. That gauge — which measures the difference between nominal and real GDP growth — has already fallen for the last three quarters, and a continued drop through June would mark the longest streak since 1999.

China will halt the lending of certain shares for short selling from Monday, the securities regulator announced Sunday, in a move to support the country’s slumping stock markets, Bloomberg News reported. Strategic investors won’t be allowed to lend out shares during agreed lock-up periods, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange said in separate releases following the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s statement.

The troubled European Signa holding company is facing claims totalling 8.613 billion euros ($9.32 billion), its court-appointed manager said on Monday, a figure that is 70% more than debts originally flagged last year when it filed for insolvency, Reuters reported. The insolvency manager, Christof Stapf, said that it had recognized only a fraction of the claims so far - just 80.3 million euros - and that many of the claims arrived without necessary supporting materials or late. Signa is the biggest casualty so far of Europe's property crisis.

The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted city-based Four Care Hospital under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in an application filed by Standard Chartered Bank, the Economic Times of India reported. The tribunal has also appointed Rajan Garg as its resolution professional. In this case, originally the company's promoter had availed a loan facility from Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL). Subsequently, that loan was acquired by Standard Chartered Bank.

The UK construction sector is facing an “immensely difficult period” after 4,370 construction companies went bust over the past year, according to new data, The Independent reported. The sector has experienced the highest number of bankruptcies of any industry in the UK for the past three years, according to auditing firm Mazars. In the year to the end of November, 4,370 companies went insolvent compared to 4,086 in 2021/22 and 2,481 in 2020/21. This reflected a 7% increase in insolvencies from 2021/22 and 76% in 2020/21 due to high material and labour costs.

Job vacancies in the UK fell by the most in more than three years in December, another sign a red-hot labor market is cooling, Bloomberg News reported. Figures in latest Job Market Report published by online portal Adzuna showed advertised vacancies declined 6.95% in December, the largest drop since June 2020. Early data suggests January will see a similar sized fall, marking what could be the start of difficult year for jobseekers, Adzuna said. The shift may ease upward pressure on wages that’s been a symptom of persistent inflationary pressures the Bank of England is trying to rein in.

Singapore’s central bank kept its monetary policy settings unchanged for a third straight time amid expectations for inflation to ease only later this year — a decision that suggests any easing could be farther down the road, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses the exchange rate as its main policy tool rather than interest rates, maintained the slope, width, and center of the currency band, it said in a statement Monday. The move will keep the local dollar on an appreciating path to blunt imported price gains.

Crypto companies based outside the EU will only be able to directly serve customers within the bloc under very limited conditions to avoid unfair competition, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) proposed on Monday, Reuters reported. The EU approved the world's first comprehensive rules for crypto markets last year, known as MiCA, a groundbreaking move in an online sector where national borders have been hard to police.