Headlines

Rolta India Ltd bondholders are forming a group to negotiate a debt restructuring after the software services provider failed to make interest payments, according to a document seen by Reuters on Friday. Rolta, whose biggest customer is the Indian government, said late on Friday its management was working on "addressing the overall situation in a comprehensive manner", blaming the cash crunch on significant expenses on a defence project and delays in payment collections.

Vladimir Putin is considering selling part of Russia’s corporate crown jewels to China and India as the president struggles to meet spending commitments before his possible re-election bid in less than two years, Bloomberg News reported. Russia is seeking buyers for 19.5 percent of state oil champion Rosneft OJSC and would prefer a joint deal with the two nations leading the growth in global energy demand, two people familiar with the matter said.

An ambitious constitutional amendment to freeze budget spending would cut the uncertainty over public finances that is the root cause of Brazil’s deep recession, according to the country’s new finance minister, the Irish Times reported on a Financial Times story. “With this kind . . . of tough fiscal policy . . . everyone will be able to project the numbers,” Henrique Meirelles said.

Every weekday morning, Christian Bjørløw drives 12 miles from his home in southern Spain, parks his car in a sunbaked lot and, flashing his passport, walks into this sliver of Britain at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula. The Danish banker is one of about 10,000 people accustomed to an easy cross-border commute to work here. The prospect of a British vote next week to leave the European Union has put them—and Gibraltarians, who depend on easy access to Europe’s market—on edge, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain and the U.K.

Struggling Mexican construction company Empresas ICA SAB said Friday it has secured a $215 million loan to fund current and future work as it outlined a plan to become a much leaner company, The Wall Street Journal reported. ICA, which has $1.35 billion in bonds, missed interest payments late last year and early this year and is in the process of debt restructuring. The company ran into financial difficulties the past two years as earnings fell at its construction division and the depreciation of the Mexican peso led to problems meeting its dollar-denominated debt obligations.

Moody’s Investors Service has changed the outlook on the UK’s credit rating to negative from stable following the EU referendum result, Bloomberg News reported. The agency said the result will herald “a prolonged period of uncertainty with negative implications for the country’s medium-term growth outlook”. “During the several years in which the UK will have to renegotiate its trade relations with the EU, Moody’s expects heightened uncertainty, diminished confidence and lower spending and investment to result in weaker growth,” the agency said.

Struggling Mexican construction company Empresas ICA SAB said Friday it has secured a $215 million loan to fund current and future work as it outlined a plan to become a much leaner company, The Wall Street Journal reported. ICA, which has $1.35 billion in bonds, missed interest payments late last year and early this year and is in the process of debt restructuring. The company ran into financial difficulties the past two years as earnings fell at its construction division and the depreciation of the Mexican peso led to problems meeting its dollar-denominated debt obligations.

Whether crisis-ridden Venezuela will default is a question increasingly on the minds of bond traders. It’s now also one that is getting front-page treatment from China, one of the Latin American country’s biggest financial backers, Bloomberg News reported. On June 11, the People’s Daily -- the mouthpiece paper of China’s Communist Party -- published an article in its overseas edition with the headline “Will Venezuela Default?” After considering its willingness and ability to pay, the author concludes the answer is no and chalks up all the talk about default to media speculation.

South Korea is overhauling its capital controls, making it easier to tap overseas markets in a partial reversal of its battle against hot money inflows since the global financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The move reflects fears that the banking system would struggle were money to suddenly flow out as US interest rates rise. The action, announced jointly by the finance ministry and regulators, came hours after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen kept alive the prospect of another US rate rise in the coming months.

The European Central Bank is facing calls from a group of EU lawmakers to reconsider its opposition to raining-down so-called helicopter money on consumers, as the debate over whether it is pursuing the right policies to boost growth widens. In an open letter to ECB president Mario Draghi, 18 members of the European Parliament’s social democrat, leftwing and green groups, say that the ECB should look at helicopter money as well as buying bonds from the European Investment Bank “as possible solutions to enhance economic development through direct spending into the real economy”.