Headlines

Demand for loans among Brazilian companies slumped in April, credit research company Serasa Experian said on Wednesday, a sign that the highest borrowing costs in nine years and the harshest recession in eight decades hampered their ability to take on fresh credit, Reuters reported. The number of requests for new loans dropped 11.6 percent in April from the prior month, and fell 4.2 percent from the same month a year earlier, Serasa said in a statement. In the first four months, demand for consumer credit dropped 8.1 percent.

Increasing prices are a big deal in Japan. The country’s sluggish economy means that the cost of most things has not risen in 20 years, and almost any increase makes headlines, the International New York Times reported. Consumer prices are a painful economic headache for Japan. The country’s officials have been trying to break this stubborn pattern of deflation by pumping money into the economy and bolstering public spending.

The European Commission recommended on Wednesday that Bulgaria take action to address several areas of macroeconomic imbalances in 2016 and 2017, the Sofia News Agency reported. The proposal is part of the Commission’s 2016 country-specific recommendations which set out its economic policy guidance for the EU Member States for the next 12 to 18 months. More specifically, the Commission recommended that Bulgaria achieve an annual fiscal adjustment of 0.5% of GDP towards the medium-term budgetary objective in 2016 and in 2017.

The International Monetary Fund is demanding that Europe free Greece from all payments on its bailout loans until 2040, in the opening bid of a struggle that pits IMF math against German muscle, The Wall Street Journal reported. A new IMF proposal shared with Europe late last week goes far beyond what Greece’s eurozone creditors, led by Germany, have said they are willing to do to help the country regain its financial health. Germany is leading the pressure on the IMF to dilute its demands and rejoin the Greek bailout program as a lender.

Brussels has granted Italy “unprecedented” flexibility in meeting EU debt reduction targets, using its political leeway to the full as it cautiously polices the eurozone’s fiscal rule book, the Financial Times reported. Italy has emerged as a big winner from the European Commission’s latest review of national budget policies, which is set to pull back from — or postpone — painful corrective measures it had the power to impose.

KKR & Co. has signed an agreement with two of Greece’s leading banks to manage up to €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion) of their problem loans, the latest effort by the struggling Greek banking sector to restructure bad debts festering on their balance sheets, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S.-based private equity group said in a statement it will help manage underperforming assets owned by Alpha Bank and Eurobank, Greece’s third and fourth largest lenders respectively, via its platform, known as Pillarstone.

Businessman and retiring federal MP Clive Palmer will sue the administrators of his beleaguered Queensland Nickel refinery in Townsville for $1.2 billion, ABC News reported. Mr Palmer said he would sue FTI Consulting in the coming weeks for allegedly lying in a report to creditors and illegally diverted money from his companies. Queensland Nickel appointed FTI Consulting as administrators in January to oversee the refinery after it went into voluntary administration. The company went into liquidation last month owing creditors more than $150 million.

Xi Jinping has called for the Communist Party to “resolutely push forward supply-side structural reform,” the People’s Daily reported Monday. Last week the Party mouthpiece carried two manifestos for reform, an interview with an anonymous “authoritative person” and the transcript of a speech by President Xi. The paradox of the Xi agenda is that he wants to use China’s Leninist system of political control to drive more free-market reform. Mr.

Hudson's Bay Co. of Canada will expand in Europe by taking over 20 department stores in the Netherlands, it said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. It is in the final stage of talks about leasing prime locations of the oldest Dutch department store chain V&D, which went bankrupt in December. The Canadian company reported retail sales of C$4.49 billion in its most recent quarter, up from C$2.63 billion a year earlier, helped by its 2.8 billion euro acquisition of German department store operator Kaufhof.

China’s central bank is investigating the accuracy of non-performing loans (NPLs) data at banks, people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday. The development underlines policymakers’ concerns about rising debt in the country. Specifically, the central bank’s financial stability bureau is investigating whether any NPLs have been miscategorised as normal loans or special mention loans, referring to debt at risk of default, according to two sources who saw a central bank notice on the issue.