Headlines

Retailer Super Retail Group will book restructuring costs and write-downs of $43 million this year as its revamps the loss-making Ray's Outdoors chain and fixes an online sporting goods business, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The one-off costs, which include $28.5 million in cash costs and $14.5 million in non-cash charges and writedowns, will dent Super Retail Group's bottom line profits in 2016. Analysts are currently expecting the group to report a net profit before one-off costs of $109 million.

New World Resources Plc, which entered the Prague Stock Exchange eight years ago as the largest Czech equity offering ever, may become the country’s biggest corporate failure in at least a decade, Bloomberg News reported. The mining company, controlled by a group of investors including Ashmore Investment Management Ltd., said on Wednesday it will probably be “wound up or broken up in an orderly manner” as a result of an insolvency filing by its key asset, OKD AS.

Businesses' requests for bankruptcy protection in Brazil doubled in the first four months of 2016 as the harshest recession in decades and borrowing costs at nine-year highs crimped the ability of factories and retailers to stay afloat, the local unit of credit research company Experian Plc said on Wednesday. Companies filed an all-time high of 571 requests for court protection from creditors, compared with 289 filings a year earlier. Last year, a record 1,287 companies sought bankruptcy protection, according to Serasa Experian, which has collected data on the indicator since 2006.

The British government on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding department store retailer BHS's collapse into administration last week, Reuters reported. Business Secretary Sajid Javid has instructed the Insolvency Service to fast-track its inquiry, which will also specifically consider the extent to which the conduct of the directors of BHS led to its insolvency.

The steel industry sits at the crux of a major debate playing out across the world economy, one that could soon be intensified by a looming change in the global trade rules, the International New York Times reported. As China’s economy has slowed, the country’s manufacturers, in varied areas like solar panels, tires, aluminum and shoes, have been in a desperate hunt to maintain sales and avoid layoffs. Looking beyond their borders, many are offering rock-bottom prices to win orders. The heavy discounting has fed a backlash.

Nearly a decade after the first flush of the financial crisis, the news flowing from Europe’s banks has been a nightmarish reprise of the kind of scandal and depressed profitability that now passes for normality. Some of the banks’ results beat “expectations” but when analysts’ forecasts have been carefully massaged down ahead of time, that hardly counts as success, the Financial Times reported. There have been glimpses of good news. Across most of Europe’s banks, costs are being cut more sharply than forecast.

The main business of Czech coal miner New World Resources (NWR) filed for insolvency on Tuesday after failing to secure government aid, but could still agree a reorganisation plan to stay afloat, Reuters reported. The business, OKD, which owns the country's only hard coal mines, is the latest miner worldwide to seek creditor protection amid slumping prices. Loss-making OKD said in its insolvency filing that it owed 17 billion crowns (629.01 million euros) and held assets worth less than 7 billion crowns.

Saudi Arabia has announced a series of market reforms aiming to make its $400bn bourse more attractive to foreign investors ahead of a much-anticipated listing of state oil company Saudi Aramco, the Financial Times reported. The Capital Market Authority, the market regulator, plans by the first half of next year to implement the new regulations, including allowing securities lending and covered short selling, a first for the markets of the Gulf states. Limits on qualified foreign investors in companies listed on the bourse, known as Tadawul, will also be lifted.

Italian banks' subordinated debt took a hit on Tuesday as the after-effects of the failed Vicenza IPO started to filter through to the debt markets. A 200m 9.5% 2025 Tier 2 bullet from Banca Popolare di Vicenza has lost over three points since the end of last week and was quoted at a 92.56 cash price on Tuesday, according to Eikon. A 200m 9.5% Tier 2 2025 deal callable in 2020 from Veneto Banca has not fared much better, dropping from 92.8 at the open to 90.1 by lunchtime.

Canadian oil and gas producer Lightstream Resources warned on Monday it could fail to meet a debt payment obligation due in mid-June if it is unable to bolster its balance sheet through asset sales, Reuters reported. The Calgary-based company also said its borrowing base had been cut to C$250 million ($199.52 million), giving it 90 days to repay its credit shortfall of C$121 million or trigger a debt default.