Headlines

Motor insurers are growing increasingly concerned at the lack of Government action to tackle pressure on premiums due to the €90 million collapse of Setanta Insurance two years ago, the Irish Times reported. Major insurance firms are now pressing for urgent steps to settle serious legal questions over their liability for any future failures after two court rulings found the industry-funded Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) should bear the cost of 1,750 outstanding claims by and against Setanta clients.

UBI Banca is preparing to issue the year's first Tier 2 bond in euros from an Italian bank, a crucial test of appetite for subordinated debt from one of the country's smaller lenders as the government tries clean up its troubled banking sector. Giorgio Erasmi, head of funding, and Laura Ferraris, head of investor relations, will meet investors in Milan, London and Paris from Thursday 21 April to Tuesday 26 April.

Brazil's rig leaser Sete Brasil Participações SA has decided to file for bankruptcy protection, the company said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. According to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, state-controlled pension fund Petros reversed its earlier position against the bankruptcy filing at a shareholder's meeting on Wednesday. The decision allows Sete Brasil to garner the 85 percent threshold for approval to file for creditor protection, said the source, who requested anonymity because the matter is private.

Saudi Arabia is raising $10bn from a consortium of global banks as the kingdom embarks on its first international debt issuance in 25 years to counter dwindling oil revenues and reserves, CNBC reported on a Financial Times story. The landmark five-year loan, a signal of Riyadh's newfound dependence on foreign capital, opens the way for Saudi to launch its first international bond issue. It comes as the sustained slump in crude encourages other Gulf governments, such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman, to tap international bond markets.

Rio de Janeiro said it’s running out of money to pay for basic services months before the Olympic Games while other Brazilian states warned of similar financial crises if the federal government doesn’t provide debt relief, Bloomberg News reported. Six state governors and a representative for Rio de Janeiro said on Tuesday their fiscal woes are forcing them to make cutbacks that could lead to a breakdown of social services. Rio has been delaying payment of salaries to public servants since the beginning of the year.

Just about the last thing China needs right now is another cement plant, The Wall Street Journal reported. Unused stocks have been piling up since the massively overbuilt real-estate market cratered in 2014. Demand will likely never fully recover; city skylines are dotted with cranes swinging idly atop half-finished apartment blocks. Alarmed, Beijing has declared that reducing overcapacity in industries like steel and cement is a national priority.

An Italian decree to speed up recovery of bad loans and compensate people who lost their savings in a bank rescue will not be discussed at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, two sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Wednesday's meeting had been expected to yield an emergency decree containing both measures, but a government source and a banking source said it would not be on the agenda. The cabinet will probably discuss and approve the decree next week, one of the sources said.

How might future historians judge a British decision to leave the EU in the referendum on June 23? It might well be seen as the moment when the west started to unravel, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. That is why Barack Obama, US president, is not merely entitled to present his views on “Brexit”. As leader of the west, he must do so. The choice the UK faces in June is whether to exercise its option to leave the EU now. So long as it is a member, it will always have this option. But it will not be granted the choice to rejoin after it has left.

Spain will overshoot its deficit target again this year, the caretaker government said Tuesday, as the country struggles to adhere to budget agreements reached with European Union authorities, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain is projected to report a 2016 budget deficit of 3.6% of gross domestic product, caretaker Finance Minister Luis de Guindos told lawmakers on Tuesday in Madrid. The European Union’s executive arm had set a target for this year of below 3%. In 2017, Spain is expected to have a budget gap of 2.9%, Mr. De Guindos said.

A key Middle Eastern business partner of 1Malaysia Development Bhd. said the Malaysian state development fund has failed to make a $1.1 billion payment as part of a debt-restructuring agreement and that as a result a debt deal between the two entities has been terminated, The Wall Street Journal reported.