Headlines

When Ireland’s “bad bank” announced this week that it would redeem €2.5bn of its debt nine months early, the news should have helped to confirm the country’s emergence as a model of post-austerity restructuring, the Financial Times reported. With the Irish economy growing at 7.8 per cent annually after years of recession, Nama, as the bank is known, can claim to have played its part in the recovery.

Brazil’s economic quagmire, with an ever-growing corruption scandal on top of the longest and deepest recession in at least a century, is producing an unprecedented era of corporate debt restructuring in the country, Bloomberg News reported. The borrowing binge Brazilian companies went on during the country’s economic boom earlier this decade has now turned into an albatross as tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets and lawmakers move toward impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

Gulf Keystone shares plummeted to seven-year lows on Thursday after the struggling oil explorer warned that it might not meet significant debt repayments due next month. Shares in the London-listed group lost more than 13pc to hit lows not seen since March 2009, at just below 10p a share. The Kurdistan-based oil producer admitted it is "unlikely" to succeed in selling off assets or completing a full corporate sale to cover its multi-million dollar debts.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday warned that a “dysfunctional” real economy is the biggest threat to financial markets as he vowed to press on with industry restructuring while maintaining economic growth rates of 6.5-7 per cent, the Financial Times reported. Speaking at the end of China’s annual parliamentary meeting, Mr Li sought to reassure an anxious public that Beijing still has the firepower to meet its financial commitments despite economic ructions.

Italian business risks “asphyxia” due to a relentless German focus on austerity and debt reduction, making a “disaster” exit from the euro increasingly possible, one of Italy’s leading industrialists has warned, the Financial Times reported. The rare comments from Gianfelice Rocca, the country’s eighth richest man and the head of its largest business lobby, reflect the frustration and worry in corporate Italy as the eurozone’s third-largest economy makes a fitful emergence from a crippling three-year recession.

Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Howard Davies said a British vote to leave the European Union would risk cutting the state-owned lender off from its Irish Ulster Bank division. “We would be very concerned if we were detached from that bank,” Mr Davies, 65, said on Wednesday, the Irish Times reported. With Ulster Bank headquartered in Dublin, RBS is considering “what it might mean if we were out whilst owning a bank within the euro zone” as part of its contingency planning, he said, ahead of Britain’s June 23rd referendum on its EU membership.

Japanese companies have markedly slowed the pace of wage growth in one of the worst blows to hit the Abenomics stimulus since it was launched in 2012. As results of the annual “spring offensive” on wages poured in from across the manufacturing sector, many companies offered pay rises half the size of last year, and far below the pace needed to drive inflation to 2 per cent, the Financial Times reported. The results are a double blow to Shinzo Abe, prime minister, and the Bank of Japan.

Struggling energy and engineering firm Abengoa will probably have to ask a court for more time to get lenders to back its debt restructuring, as its race to avoid becoming Spain's first ever bankruptcy goes down to the wire, Reuters reported. The company said on Wednesday it expected to have the support of creditors representing 60 percent of its financial debt by a legal deadline on March 28.

Latin America’s largest independent oil producer, Pacific Exploration & Production Corp., is evaluating six buyout offers to avoid bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported. The final offers, which include a management buyout and up to $500 million in loans, are due Wednesday, with the board expected to make a decision by the end of the week, the four people said.

A protest by Chinese coal workers over unpaid wages drew a swift, expected response: payoffs to get them off the streets and threats of police action if they don’t. The effort underscores the government’s long-standing worries about labor strife and its newly cautious approach to restructuring unprofitable state firms, The Wall Street Journal reported. Unrest in the northeastern city of Shuangyashan appeared to ease as Longmay Mining Holding Group Co., a huge employer, started disbursing some back pay on Monday, workers said.