Headlines

The chairman of Hanjin Group transferred 40 billion won ($36 million) to Hanjin Shipping on Tuesday to help unload cargo stranded on the troubled shipper's vessels, a spokesman said, but regulators warned securing further funds could take "considerable time". Hanjin Group, the parent of Hanjin Shipping, pledged last week to raise 100 billion won to help rescue cargo in the wake of the collapse of the world's seventh-biggest container shipper, including the 40 billion won from Chairman Cho Yang-ho.

ABN Amro Group NV could eliminate more than 1,000 jobs as the Dutch bank ramps up a restructuring plan designed to reduce costs, The Wall Street Journal reported. ABN Amro said Monday in a letter to its works council that it is considering scrapping 975 to 1,375 jobs in the next couple of years, a move that would reduce annual costs by €195 million ($219 million) to €225 million. The bank, which is controlled by the Dutch government, employs around 22,000 people worldwide. The bank had already hinted at job losses when it presented its second-quarter results in August.

Amid mounting corporate debts and defaults, China's banking regulator has stepped into the fray, urging banks that are creditors of heavily indebted companies to coordinate their actions and negotiate together. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) issued a notice on Friday that told banks to set up creditor committees not only to protect their rights but also, when possible, to help companies struggling to repay their debts to get back on their feet. Although the notice was aimed at banks, other financial institutions approved by the CBRC can also participate.

Shanghai police say they have found the root of rumors that sparked a home-buying frenzy in late August and led to instability in the city’s real-estate market, The Wall Street Journal China Real Time Report blog reported. It began, police said, with a woman who said she had a tip that the city government was mulling changes to home-buying rules.

South African Airways, the national carrier, probably incurred a loss for a fifth consecutive year in the past financial period, and would be insolvent without a government-backed guarantee, Bloomberg News reported. The state airline’s loss for the year ending March is estimated at 1.8 billion rand ($124 million), and follows a 4.7 billion loss a year earlier, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in parliament on Tuesday. Gordhan approved a further 4.7 billion rand going-concern guarantee last week that will allow the company to release delayed financial statements on Sept. 15.

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pledged to seek lower primary budget-surplus targets after the country’s current bailout program expires in 2018, which he said will lead to lower tax burdens for the Greeks, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Our goal is to de-escalate the primary surplus to 2.5% in 2019 and 2% in 2020,” the Greek Prime Minister said during his speech at the annual international trade fair in Thessaloniki, Greece, late Saturday.

Kingdom Jewellery is trying to stand out among the eerily quiet luxury stores in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, once the world’s most expensive shopping district in terms of rents. But while it has hung signs promoting a “crazy sale” and payment by instalments in the window, buyers are still scarce, the Financial Times reported. “Our customer flow has dropped 60-70 per cent” since the peak of Chinese luxury spending in 2013, says manager Jacky Sze.

More than half of Chinese infrastructure investments have “destroyed, not generated” economic value as the costs have been larger than the benefits, according to researchers at Oxford university, a finding that will fuel debate over the viability of China’s infrastructure-heavy growth model. Infrastructure investment has been a major driver of Chinese economic growth over the past 35 years as hundreds of millions of workers migrated from rural to urban areas. China has stepped up infrastructure spending this year to buffer a slowdown in manufacturing investment.

A key member of South Korea’s Hanjin Group agreed Saturday to a conditional bailout of the group’s shipping unit, whose collapse has sparked turmoil worldwide on the high seas. The board of group unit Korean Air, meeting for the third straight day, decided to lend 60 billion won ($55 million) to Hanjin Shipping, two thirds of whose cargo fleet is marooned at sea due to huge debts, Gulf News Shipping reported. “The board members decided to provide the loan but only in exchange for collateral (from Hanjin Shipping),” a company spokeswoman told AFP.

A major financial scandal swirling around the Malaysian prime minister is drawing fresh attention to his glamorous wife, Rosmah Mansor, who newly revealed documents show has racked up at least $6 million in credit card charges in recent years—despite having no known source of income beyond her husband’s salary, The Wall Street Journal reported.