Headlines

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Foxconn Technology Group’s flagship company, on Sunday denied media reports that the bailout of Sharp Corp. will be approved and signed on March 31, a day after Hon Hai’s board meets, Bloomberg News reported. Progress in talks to acquire troubled Japanese electronics maker Sharp will determine whether the deal is discussed at the board meeting, which will go ahead as scheduled, Hon Hai said in a statement to the Taiwan stock exchange.

Acute energy shortages, historically a warning sign for unpopular Latin American leaders, are threatening to undermine the government of Colombia and plunge neighbouring Venezuela deeper in to crisis, the Financial Times reported. Free-market Colombia, until recently a regional star, and the crisis-ridden, socialist Venezuela have both been forced to introduce energy-saving measures amid a combination of factors aggravated by a lack of rain due to the El Niño weather phenomenon. Venezuela’s government even extended the Easter holiday from three to five days to save electricity.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to upend existing multilateral development lenders, nor should it be a hot spot for conflict between China and the U.S., the AIIB president said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Beijing-based infrastructure bank, which was conceived as China’s answer to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, has faced skepticism, particularly from the U.S., over how it is managed and whether it has a political agenda to advance Beijing’s interests.

British department stores group BHS has won support from its creditors for a rescue plan that should allow the retailer to stay in business thanks to big cuts in its rent bill, Reuters reported. The 88-year-old firm, hit hard by intense competition in the retail sector, said on Wednesday creditors to BHS Limited, which covers 125 of its 164 stores, had voted to approve its proposal for a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) - a form of compromise agreement to avoid administration or liquidation.

Greece has blamed the International Monetary Fund for a significant delay to the completion of the country’s bailout review, The Wall Street Journal reported. “All institutions share the blame, but especially the IMF, are to blame for the continued uncertainty prevailing in Greece’s economy,” Franciscos Koutentakis, general secretary of fiscal policy, told reporters on Wednesday. “It seems that they want to see you being at the edge of a cliff, in order to start negotiating seriously,” he added. Mr.

Across the global oil patch, from Texas to the North Sea, drilling rigs are standing idle as energy companies respond to the slump in crude prices by cutting investments. Not so in the swampy Siberian marshes that are Rosneft’s heartland, the Financial Times reported. At Yuganskneftegaz, the production subsidiary that accounts for more than one-tenth of the country’s oil output, the state-controlled Russian oil company doubled its drilling rate during 2015.

Euro-area bank supervisors are looking at countries like Ireland with a history of tackling soured loans for hints on how to work out the €1.2 trillion bad debt pile that’s plaguing banks across the euro zone, the Irish Times reported. Non-performing loans remain a top priority for the European Central Bank, Daniele Nouy and Sabine Lautenschlaeger, who lead the ECB’s supervisory board, said on Wednesday. As there’s no silver bullet, supervisors are settling in for years of work, learning from the countries with experience of the problem.

Mongolian Mining Corp. didn’t make principal and interest payments on a $200 million loan facility and wasn’t able to get a temporary waiver from banks, triggering a cross-default on its bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The miner failed to make the payments on the loan facility taken from BNP Paribas SA and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in March 2014, and didn’t get a waiver from the lenders, according to a stock exchange filing. The situation constitutes a cross-default event in the terms of other indebtedness including its $600 million of 8.875 percent notes, it said.

Consumers looking to buy a home should find it easier to shop around for a mortgage under new European rules introduced in Ireland yesterday, the Irish Times reported. However, obtaining a mortgage for those living in the south but working in Northern Ireland may become more difficult, while getting a cheaper mortgage in another EU state remains unlikely despite the introduction of pan-European rules. Under the European Mortgage Credit Directive new EU-wide responsible lending practices have been introduced.

Spain's Abengoa is seen winning more time for talks aimed at avoiding bankruptcy as more creditors have agreed to back debt restructuring plan and inject new emergency liquidity, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The engineering and energy company, struggling with a 9.4-billion-euro ($10.6 billion) debt pile, is in pre-insolvency talks with lenders and has until March 28 to win their backing and avoid becoming Spain's largest ever bankruptcy.