Headlines

Some of the biggest Thames Water bondholders have signed non-disclosure agreements to access sensitive information about the firm as debt talks progress. That also means they can no longer trade the company’s bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The step is key to pushing forward discussions with Britain’s largest water and sewage company about a cash injection to keep operations running. The bondholders that signed the NDA form a steering committee that represents the interests of a creditor group led by Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Azul’s shares jumped 16% in Sao Paulo trading after the Brazilian air carrier reached an agreement with its lessors and parts suppliers that helps cut its debt load, Bloomberg News reported. The deal allows the airline to slash 3 billion reais ($547 million) of debt in exchange for 100 million new preferred shares, according to a regulatory filing. “This agreement with lessors should ease the negotiations with other creditors,” Bradesco BBI analyst Victor Mizusaki writes in a note.

India’s central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged, staying focused on inflation amid geopolitical tensions, but shifted its policy stance in a potential sign that the door to rate cuts is open, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary-policy committee voted five to one to maintain the policy repo rate at 6.50%, Gov. Shaktikanta Das said Wednesday. The committee also decided unanimously to change the policy stance to neutral from a “withdrawal of accommodation,” he added.

Zimbabwe’s government has hired financial and legal advisers to help it navigate potential talks with international creditors over the $21 billion it owes, Bloomberg News reported. Paris-based boutique firm GSA & Co. SAS, founded by a former Rothschild & Co. banker, and law firm Kepler Karst, which specializes in debt restructuring and insolvency, signed engagement letters to provide Zimbabwe with advice on debt management. The southern African country has been locked out of international debt markets since 1999 after a default, and its interest payments have ballooned.

After a late-September burst of policy announcements about economic revival and a news conference Tuesday to tout them, the Chinese stock-market roller coaster took a plunge on Wednesday. Beijing’s answer: plans for another news conference, the Wall Street Journal reported. This time, officials said that they were going to talk about “intensifying fiscal policy.” Analysts said that unless the message was reassuring, more wild turns were likely to follow.

New Zealand's central bank slashed rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday and said policy is still restrictive even though inflation has returned to target, prompting markets to bet on yet more aggressive easing and sending the kiwi dollar skidding, Reuters reported. “The Committee agreed that it is appropriate to cut the OCR (official cash rate) by 50 basis points to achieve and maintain low and stable inflation, while seeking to avoid unnecessary instability in output, employment, interest rates, and the exchange rate," the central bank said in its policy statement.

Brazil’s annual inflation sped up roughly in line with estimates in September as a historic drought pressured electricity and food prices in Latin America’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Official data released Wednesday showed prices rose 4.42% from a year earlier, just below the 4.44% median estimate of economists surveyed Bloomberg. On the month, they increased 0.44%. Policymakers are raising interest rates as price pressures build and investors grow uneasy about the stewardship of Brazil’s economy.

Japan saw the highest number of bankruptcies since 2013 in the six months through September, as companies were increasingly hit by rising costs, Bloomberg News reported. Some 4,990 firms went bankrupt in that period, increasing 18.6% from the previous year, according to a report by Teikoku Databank on Tuesday. The number of firms going under in Japan has continued to increase since the second half of the year ending March 2022. The jump in bankruptcies partly reflects the impact of higher prices, particularly for small companies.

A subsidiary of corpdSweden's Northvolt filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday after the project it was developing was cancelled, court filings showed, while the rest of the cash-strapped battery making group continued to consolidate operations, Reuters reported. The Northvolt Ett Expansion AB unit had debts estimated at between 2 billion and 3 billion Swedish crowns ($194 million and $290 million), a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee told business daily Dagens Industri.

The government has tabled, before Parliament, a draft law on simplified insolvency for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), which is aimed at supporting investors faced with financial distress, The New Times reported. The new law, once enacted, could mean a difference for small businesses in Rwanda that often struggle with financial difficulties with limited options to recover from these difficulties.