Headlines

Brexit will hit the Scottish economy and cut the semi-autonomous government’s tax revenue by as much as 13 per cent by 2030, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s administration said, the Irish Times reported on a Bloomberg News story. Depending on the post-Brexit trading arrangement adopted by the UK government with the remaining 27 European Union nations, Scottish gross domestic product could be as much as £11.2 billion a year lower in 2030 than it would have been if Britain remained in the bloc, the Scottish government said in a report citing analysis by a range of research groups.

An international arbitration tribunal has ordered Venezuela to pay a Vancouver-based mining company more than $1.2 billion ($1.5 billion Cdn.) for expropriating its gold mines. Venezuela took over Rusoro Mining’s investments in the country as part of a nationalization of the gold industry in 2011, the Toronto Star reported on a Canadian Press story. Rusoro Mining Ltd. said Tuesday the money is due immediately and it expects that Venezuela will comply with its international obligations.

UK exporters and overseas shoppers visiting Britain are shaping up to be the biggest winners from the plunge in sterling since the vote to leave the EU, the Irish Times reported. According to the Confederation of British Industry, manufacturers’ export order books hit a two-year high this month in a “tentative sign that sterling’s depreciation is starting to filter through to overseas demand”. Chemical manufacturers accounted for just over half of the improvement in export orders, according to the CBI survey.

State-owned property developer Nakheel, which was at the centre of Dubai's debt crisis in 2009, has finished recovering from a $16 billion debt restructuring by repaying an Islamic bond this month, its chairman said on Monday, Reuters reported. Ali Rashid Lootah told a small group of reporters that Nakheel had transferred funds for repayment of a 4.4 billion dirham ($1.2 billion) sukuk issue maturing this month. "We are closing the restructuring file," he said.

The best-performing bank in China is in a struggling city in the northeast where weeds sprout alongside the concrete skeletons of high rises in an industrial zone that mostly looks like a ghost town, Bloomberg News reported. Steel plants have laid off tens of thousands of workers. Cranes stand idle on construction sites. Wipe away a spiderweb on a dirty glass door at an empty complex with smashed windows and there’s a notice from the local government demanding rent unpaid since November 2014. Yet the Bank of Tangshan’s financial statements hardly reflect these realities.

The owners of the Mater Private hospital, who recently pulled a sale of the business for the second time in 14 months, have secured a €300 million refinancing deal led by Australian bank Macquarie. The Sydney-based bank’s Macquarie Lending unit in London said it acted as lead arranger and finance partner for the hospital group. The transaction will refinance the Mater Private’s existing debt and includes a “tailored” capital expenditure facility to support growth and development of the hospital, it said.

Most of the creditors of the company Retail Value Stores, which operates retailer Carrefour, will not see their debts fully repaid after the creditors’ committee approved the restructuring plan for the company acknowledging only 3 percent of the debts’ value, The Slovak Spectator reported. The plan was approved by three members of the committee, while two were against it. Some 400 creditors of Retail Value Stores should meet at the so-called approval meeting that is scheduled to take place in 30 days, TASR wrote.

Years of stagnant wage growth have left more than 1m of Britain’s low-income households struggling with debt problems, according to a report from the TUC, the Financial Times reported. The trade union group argues that even though record-low interest rates have kept the cost of servicing debt at historic lows, many households are acutely financially vulnerable. Based on its analysis of official and survey data, the TUC report estimates that, of 1.6m households in what it terms “extreme problem debt”, 1.2m have an income of below £30,000.

At an English country mansion last month, lawyers for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) sat down with representatives of angry shareholders to broker an end to what may end up being the costliest case in British legal history, Reuters reported. The meeting at The Grove, an 18-century estate near London that served as the secret World War Two HQ for Britain's biggest railway company, was convened to persuade investors to drop claims they were misled into stumping up 12 billion pounds ($16 billion) just a few months before the bank's bailout in 2008.

The fate of debt-ridden Hanjin Shipping Co. remains yet uncertain with its parent group having missed the August 20 deadline to submit additional financial support measures to creditors to salvage its shipping unit from heading to court receivership, Pulse reported. All eyes are now on whether the South Korean shipping company would successfully strike a deal with foreign ship owners to reduce chartering fees, a move that is expected to allow its creditors to be more lenient in providing additional financial support.