Headlines

PGGM, one of the largest Dutch pension fund managers, will on Monday complete a €2.3bn trade to insure loans of Santander, the Spanish bank, in a deal that highlights the growing appeal of exotic financial instruments in a world of ultra-low interest rates, the Financial Times reported. The two parties are finalising a so-called synthetic securitisation deal, by which PGGM will sell credit insurance against potential losses on a portion of more than 6,000 Santander loans to small and medium enterprises.

Saudi Arabia is considering selling shares in refining ventures with foreign oil firms but would not offer a stake in the crude oil exploration and production operations of state oil giant Saudi Aramco, sources familiar with official thinking said, Bloomberg News reported. Some Aramco managers have been informed that the company is looking at listing shares in "joint downstream subsidiaries" at home and abroad, the sources said. One option is to create a holding company that would group together Aramco's stakes in the downstream subsidiaries, one source said.

Economists have for months been criticising foreign exchange controls introduced to defend Nigeria’s currency against speculative attack. Now the restrictions are biting the country’s international jet set, who are, to their embarrassment and frustration, finding their debit cards rejected at ATMs, restaurants and shops from London to Dubai and from Paris to New York, the Financial Times reported.

It was an unpleasant late Christmas present for some of the world’s biggest investors. They woke up on December 30 to find that Portugal had announced plans to impose heavy losses on almost €2bn of senior bonds at Novo Banco, the bank created from the ruins of Banco Espírito Santo, the Financial Times reported in an analysis. This controversial move — prompting threats of lawsuits from some investors — was the latest in a series of rescue operations launched for struggling banks in Greece, Italy and Portugal in the last few weeks of 2015.

China’s hoard of foreign-exchange reserves continued to shrink in December, recording the biggest monthly drop ever and falling overall to its lowest level in nearly three years as worries intensify over the country’s economic slowdown, The Wall Street Journal reported. With the $107.9 billion drop in December, Beijing’s foreign-exchange reserves have fallen every month but one since May. The data suggest the central bank is having to spend huge amounts of dollars to support an increasingly beleaguered yuan amid decelerating economic growth and the onset of higher U.S.

Saudi Arabia is considering selling shares in its state-owned oil company, a move that comes amid a broad privatization effort afoot in the kingdom, but also at a vulnerable time for Riyadh because of tumbling energy prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Any move to list shares in Saudi Arabian Oil Co., better known as Saudi Aramco, would almost assuredly be limited in scale, and could exclude its strategic production assets altogether.

South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction (HHIC) is seeking a debt restructuring with its creditors and is expecting to post its sixth consecutive year of losses in 2015, reports said. In a regulatory filing to the stock exchange, HHIC said it faces a temporary liquidity shortage and seeks to restructure its debts with creditors under a voluntary agreement. Local media reports mentioned that HHIC is requesting its major creditor Korea Development Bank (KDB) to approve the debt restructuring plan, allowing the yard to then delay debt repayments and obtain extra funding.

Clive Palmer has lashed out at the Queensland government for refusing to support his struggling Yabulu nickel refinery, as reports emerge that insolvency experts have been called in, The Guardian reported. Palmer released a statement saying the government’s recent refusal to assist Queensland Nickel by guaranteeing a $35m loan was making it “near impossible” to compete in the international marketplace.

The Revenue Commissioners secured 27 criminal convictions for serious tax evasion and fraud in 2015, according to figures released Thursday, the Irish Times reported. Those prosecutions were on top of 2,063 summary convictions, or lesser charges, for the non-filling of tax returns and customs offences. Headline figures for the year show the service conducted more than 461,000 individual audits and compliance investigations which yielded €642.5 million.

Trading was halted on China’s stock market on Thursday morning, as stocks plummeted over concerns about the country’s currency, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. It has been a rocky start for the market in the new year, with trading volatile throughout the week. The Chinese market also closed early on Monday after stocks sank precipitously. The latest tumult is likely to add to worries about the Chinese economy and global growth. China’s currency has been falling steadily, as investors pull money out of the country and China’s economy pulls back.