Headlines

Reeling under a huge debt burden of Rs 50,000 crore, the sugar industry today asked the government to restructure debt and extend interest subvention on soft loans for another three years, the Business Standard reported. A representation in this regard has been made to the PMO as well as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently by both private and cooperative sugar mills bodies -- Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.

A thousand abandoned concrete huts dot a plain beneath a remote mountain range here in western Venezuela, surrounded by empty, rusting silos and irrigation canals covered with weeds. This is the Diluvio agro-industrial commune, built with $2 billion of Venezuelan capital by Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht SA, which last month admitted to giving out almost $800 million in bribes to secure contracts in 12 countries, including Venezuela.

When China’s stock market and currency both plunged last January, many global investors assumed the end was near. After years of debt-fuelled stimulus used to fund investment in housing, infrastructure and excess manufacturing capacity, many believed the bubble was finally bursting, the Financial Times reported. It didn’t. China’s economy is expected to have met the government’s target of at least 6.5 per cent growth of gross domestic product for 2016. The stock market has stabilised and is up 19 per cent since its low point in late January 2016.

Islamic mortgage provider Amlak Finance has announced the renegotiation of a restructuring deal with its financiers, Gulf Business reported. The firm said it approached financiers in September to wave “a number of restrictive covenants” in its original restructuring terms from 2014. These included adjustments restrictions to allow for the company’s mortgage book to be maintained at higher levels, funds to be raised under certain pre-agreed parameters and the removal of restrictions on business origination. The majority of financiers have now approved the company’s new business plan.

German inflation jumped to within a whisker of the European Central Bank target in December, hitting the highest level in more than three years and providing the euro zone bank with evidence its loose monetary policy is working, Reuters reported. The surprisingly strong surge in consumer prices, however, may put a damper on Germans' appetite for shopping as higher inflation means consumers have less real income to spend.

The chances that the U.K. will quit the single market and revert to a tariffs regime have grown more likely with the resignation of the British envoy to the European Union, an experienced Brussels insider who was reviled by the leading Brexit supporters, Bloomberg News reported. Backers of a clean break from the EU cheered the departure of Ivan Rogers as a sign the U.K. government is committed to regaining complete control of immigration, laws and budget even if that means fraying trade ties.

No wonder Germany is on the warpath against a proposed global standard for how banks calculate the capital they need: Its largest lenders rank among the worst when it comes to how they assess risk. That means Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG will be affected more than most big lenders and may have to raise additional capital, if and when the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision implements a proposed floor for how much their risk-weighting of assets can veer from standardized measures.

Demonetisation has gripped India’s collective mind; and its banks’ attention of late, livemint.com reported in a commentary. Nevertheless, in the year past, much has transpired on the insolvency reform front, including a new Insolvency Code and asset reconstruction licences, and the Bankruptcy Board’s arrival with a bang. The orientation towards action is positive, and speaks of a refusal to permit the “perfect to be the enemy of the good”.

The liquidators of BHS are conducting a detailed investigation into property transactions that took place during the regimes of Sir Philip Green and Dominic Chappell, including whether the directors of the retailer breached their duties, The Guardian reported. Insolvency practitioners have a legal duty to review the conduct of the directors of a collapsed company, but the scope and depth of the BHS investigation is rare. FRP Advisory is undertaking a “massive exercise in data collation”, according to one source close to the winding up of BHS.

Deutsche Bank chairman Paul Achleitner has ruled out a European merger or a state bailout after the lender’s mortgage settlement with the US department of justice, the Irish Times reported. The bank, Germany’s biggest, last week announced a $7.2 billion (€6.8 billion) settlement with the US department of justice over its sale and pooling of mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. “The management board in principle looks at everything that could help the business,” Mr Achleitner said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.