Headlines

Argentina’s deal to put a bitter 15-year creditor saga behind it won’t come cheap, Bloomberg News reported. On Sunday, the country agreed to terms with bondholders led by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer over unpaid debts from its record $95 billion default in 2001. The settlement, which will let Argentina regain access to overseas bond markets, is the biggest, and arguably the most significant, in a string of creditor accords struck by President Mauricio Macri since he took office Dec. 10. The tab for all these deals?

The Chinese central bank, says Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan, is “neither a god nor a magician.” He was responding, in a written interview published by financial magazine Caixin, to complaints that Chinese financial authorities lack the communications skills needed to calm international investors. After months of silence while global markets went into convulsions over uncertainty about China’s currency policies, Mr. Zhou said, “There is no way we can wipe out all uncertainties.” The defensiveness is understandable. Here’s the problem: Mr.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel has handed down a long-awaited ruling in the bankruptcy proceedings surrounding U.S. Steel Canada, Canadian Manufacturing reported. The court battle centred on more than $2 billion in loans paid by Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to its then subsidiary USS Canada following the Stelco acquisition in 2007. The government of Ontario and the United Steelworkers union have maintained the funds were extended to USS’s Canadian operation as “equity” rather than debt, while USS has said it expected the funds to be repaid.

Examination by AIB as to how William and Sheila Moran, the former owners of Morans on the Weir, in Kilcolgan, Co Galway, spent €24,000 a month on living expenses over 38 months to the end of 2014, is continuing, the Irish Times reported. Mr Justice Brian McGovern was yesterday told the bank is reviewing some new information it has received over the past two weeks, and is waiting for more that is pending. The case was adjourned to April 4th.

The former CEO of fraud scandal-hit Sino Forest Corporation has been named the chief restructuring officer (CRO) of China Fishery Group, according to the company. Paul Jeremy Bough was appointed CRO and executive director of Pacific Andes International Holdings (PAIH) owned China Fishery on Jan. 21 with effect from Feb. 26, according to a stock exchange alert from the company. From January 2013-April 2015, Bough was CEO and chairman of Emerald Plantation Holdings, parent of Sino Forest, which was accused of a major accountancy fraud in 2011 in a report from Muddy Waters Research.

Argentina is poised to return to international capital markets after a 15-year ban as it finally reached an agreement with a group of creditors led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, the Financial Times reported. The deal, which has to be approved by Argentine lawmakers, is to pay $4.653bn to settle all claims with four “holdouts” that had refused to restructure debt after the country’s 2001 default.

UK households and companies started 2016 in a free-spending mood, loading up on debt to finance cars, mortgages and corporate loans, the Financial Times reported. Figures from the Bank of England showed unsecured lending to households, mostly car loans rather than credit card debt, grew 9.1 per cent in the year to January, the most for a decade. Mortgage approvals have recovered from the 2015 dip, and loan growth to small and large companies is growing again on an annual basis, for the first time since a consistent series began in 2012.

British financial regulators said on Monday that they would continue to exempt small banks and similarly sized financial institutions from European rules that cap bankers’ bonuses, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

China’s central bank is increasingly finding itself in a bind, balancing its need to continue easing credit to support economic growth against its stated goal of keeping the Chinese currency stable. Late Monday, the People’s Bank of China lowered the amount of deposits that banks must hold in reserve by 0.5 percentage point, freeing up an estimated 700 billion yuan ($107 billion) in funds for banks to make loans. The move marks a reversal in the central bank’s stance from two months ago, when it resisted using such aggressive easing tools for fear that they could weaken the yuan.

The European Central Bank is under growing pressure to step up support for the eurozone’s flagging economy after the bloc slipped back into negative inflation in February, The Guardian reported. The surprise drop in prices marked the third time in a year that inflation has turned negative, fanning fears that the eurozone is headed for all-out deflation – a sustained period of falling prices.