Headlines

Georgia’s prime minister announced his resignation yesterday without explaining his reasons, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Irakli Garibashvili is an ally of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream party routed supporters of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in a 2012 election. He has served as prime minister of the former Soviet nation since November 2013. Georgian media had speculated that Garibashvili would step down to focus all his energy on the campaign for Georgian Dream in parliamentary elections next November.

Spanish thermal solar power and engineering firm Abengoa signed an agreement with its creditor banks on Thursday for a 106-million-euro ($116.1 million) credit line to help avert what would be Spain's biggest-ever bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The loan will be used for general corporate necessities, Abengoa said in a statement to the stock market regulator. It is using some shares held in the affiliate Abengoa Yield as collateral, it said. The banks also agreed to free up a further 7 million euros related to a previous loan, backed by the Abengoa Yield shares.

Metinvest BV, the steelmaker controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, said it issued a practice statement letter to propose a U.K. debt restructuring, known as a scheme of arrangement, Bloomberg News reported today. The scheme provides for a moratorium, which will prevent bondholders from taking enforcement action and is meant to give the company time to negotiate with investors, Metinvest said. The letter was sent to holders of $1.1 billion of bonds maturing in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

China Great Wall Asset Management Corp. said today that two state entities will become investors and that it will seek more investors to pave the way for an eventual initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The asset-management company--one of four Chinese financial institutions known as “bad banks” for buying up sour loans--said that China’s National Social Security Fund and China Life Insurance will buy unspecified stakes in the firm. It didn’t disclose details.

Indian lawmakers sent a proposed bankruptcy law for review today, closing off a raucous parliament session without transacting any major legislative business including a signature reform on state taxes, Reuters reported. The bankruptcy law is aimed at unifying and overhauling rules governing the liquidation or revival of ailing companies into a single code and for the first time imposing deadlines. Its passage was widely considered to be a done deal after the government introduced the legislation as a money bill which could not have been blocked in the opposition-dominated upper house.

National Bank of Greece said yesterday that it had agreed to sell a majority stake in Finansbank of Turkey to Qatar National Bank for 2.75 billion euros, or about $3 billion, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday. The Greek bank began exploring “strategic options” for its Turkish business last year after the European Central Bank identified a capital shortfall at National Bank of Greece and at other Greek lenders.

Vroom & Dreesman, the largest department store chain in the Netherlands, has been granted protection from creditors after failed efforts to turn around the troubled business, Reuters reported today. V&D, with 10,000 employees at 62 stores across the Netherlands, has struggled to cut costs after posting losses in 2014. "It is a huge disappointment that we have to seek protection from our creditors," Chief Executive John van der Ent said in a statement.

China’s central bank said that it would extend the yuan’s trading hours in the mainland market starting next month, in a much-anticipated move aimed at increasing the Chinese currency’s global appeal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The People’s Bank of China said that beginning on Jan. 4, the hours for buying and selling the yuan on the mainland will be extended to 11:30 p.m. local time, from the current 4:30 p.m.

A day after worse than expected borrowing figures, the U.K. Office for National Statistics revised down its estimate of gross domestic product growth in the third quarter of the year from 0.5 percent quarter on quarter to 0.4 percent, the Financial Times reported today. It also revised down the annual rate of growth to 2.1 percent from 2.3 percent, adding to evidence that the economic recovery may be losing momentum. The Treasury stressed that the UK still had the joint fastest growth rate in the G7, along with the US, and employment is at a record high.

Creditor banks of Spanish energy and engineering firm Abengoa have agreed to inject 113 million euros ($123 million) into the debt-laden company, Reuters reported today. The lenders will receive shares in Abengoa Yield worth more than double of the loan as a guarantee, the sources also said, adding that Spain's official credit institute would also participate in the loan with 8.7 million euros. Read more.