Headlines

China’s banks are set to be the biggest losers in the sweeping bailouts of the country’s steel and coal industries, the Financial Times reported. Local governments hoping to save their steel mills and coal miners have announced a series of restructuring plans, enlisting the banks to take the hit by improving the terms of the loans or swapping them for bonds or equity in the struggling groups.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said unconventional monetary policy may have to be used differently and more frequently if governments don’t act to boost the growth potential of euro-area economies, Bloomberg News reported. “We may see short-term rates being pushed to the effective lower bound more frequently in the event of macroeconomic shocks,” Coeure said Saturday in a speech at the U.S. Federal Reserve’s annual policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His remarks were posted on the ECB’s website.

Banca Popolare di Bari is poised to test Italy's new bad loan guarantee, but questions remain over whether it can pave the way for other banks seeking to securitise soured debt, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, Bari announced it had structured a 140.5m securitisation backed by non-performing loans, which it plans to sell to the public market with the help of Italy's new state guarantee, known as Gacs.

BlackBerry’s announcement that it will be restructuring its debt is “smart financial management,” one tech industry analyst says, CTV News reported. “It gives BlackBerry even more runway as it continues to manage its way through what’s become a very protracted transition period,” CTV technology analyst Carmi Levy said Friday. BlackBerry announced Friday that it will be redeeming US$1.245 billion worth of unsecured convertible debentures, which can be converted into shares in the company at a price of US$10 per share.

As bond defaults soar in China, investors and regulators are moving to introduce financial tools that have been widely used in global markets to provide protection for creditors in cases where companies can’t pay their debts, The South China Morning Post reported. The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII), a Chinese industry body under the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), has consulted major banks and brokerage firms in recent weeks about a plan to introduce credit default swaps, according to recent media reports in the mainland and Hong Kong.

Hanjin Shipping on Thursday submitted its plan to boost liquidity to the Korea Development Bank, its largest creditor, but gave little details, JOC.com reported. South Korean financial sources have indicated that the plan involves asset sales beyond the previously disclosed efforts to raise 411.2 billion South Korean won ($357 million) and could reach as high as 700 billion won. Hanjin has already sold stakes in a terminal in Vietnam, a ship, its London office and its remaining stakes in H-Line Shipping, to which it sold its liquefied natural gas and dedicated dry bulk divisions in 2014.

The case of $67,000 stolen from Argentine Vice President Gabriela Michetti’s house should have ended when her bodyguard was arrested, Bloomberg News reported. Instead, prosecutors have shifted to tracing the money’s origin, making her a public example of the challenges President Mauricio Macri’s faces in weaning the country off its reliance on cash, an age-old system that in many instances hides tax evasion. Elected last November on a vow to reverse 12 years of leftist populism, Macri ended currency controls, reformed the statistics bureau and settled a toxic dispute over bond payments.

When the European Union pressured Switzerland to scrap tax breaks for foreign companies, Geneva had most to lose. Now, the canton that is home to almost 1,000 multinationals is set to use tax to burnish its appeal, the Irish Times reported. Geneva will on August 30th propose cutting its corporate tax rate to 13.49 per cent from 24.2 per cent, according to sources. For an interim period of five years, the rate will be a slightly higher 13.79 per cent, the sources said.

Spain’s robust economic expansion is defying concerns that a political impasse, now in its ninth month with no end in sight, would tarnish one of Europe’s economic bright spots, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the pillars that have sustained Spain’s recovery from recession are showing signs of strain, and economists expect growth to slow in 2017—in part because political uncertainty is putting a damper on some kinds of investment. The Spanish economy grew 0.8% in the second quarter driven by consumer spending and exports, the country’s statistics agency said Thursday.

New Zealand's insolvency practitioners look likely to face a new licensing regime after a report to Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith found that gaps in existing rules enable dishonesty and incompetence, The New Zealand Herald reported. The public has until Oct. 7 to make submissions on a review of insolvency law, which Goldsmith says is primarily to find what the minimum level of entry should be for the specialists tasked with winding down companies.