Headlines

Published data would suggest Indonesian banks are holding up well, in spite of the commodity downturn, a lack of diversification in the economy and protracted currency weakness. But there is good reason to believe such data do not tell the full story. While the true extent of stress is hard to gauge, it is unlikely that medium-sized banks, in particular, will be able to maintain healthy profits for long, according to FT Confidential Research, an FT investment research service.

Abengoa SA, the Spanish renewable energy company that has filed for creditor protection, missed interest payments to noteholders in Mexico, Bloomberg News reported. Abengoa de Mexico SA investors were due 1.16 million pesos ($70,000) on Thursday, financial advisory Monex Casa de Bolsa SA said in two regulatory filings with BMV, the Latin American nation’s securities exchange. Monex represents holders of the notes, it said. Seville, Spain-based Abengoa filed for preliminary creditor protection with a court in its home city on Nov.

Greece’s economy contracted at a faster pace in the third quarter than previously estimated as capital controls to shore up banks took a toll on investment, exports and consumer spending, revised statistics service data showed on Friday, the Irish Times reported. Gross domestic product declined by 0.9 per cent from July to September compared to the second quarter based on seasonally adjusted data - a steeper fall than a previously estimated 0.5 per cent contraction.

The Polish president's economic advisor Zdzislaw Sokal told Reuters that the failure of SK bank which cost other lenders some 1.4 billion zlotys ($348.17 million) would not inflict any damage on the domestic banking sector. Sokal added that President Andrzej Duda was not ready yet to announce specific plans for legislation mandating a conversion of Swiss franc mortgages, one of his pre-election promises. Duda was elected in May. It was not clear yet, Sokal said, whether the conversion would be conducted at historical exchange rates, as this may be subject to discussion.

Mineral-rich Zambia has announced a program of austerity measures to try to close a gaping budget deficit and restore confidence in southern Africa’s third-largest economy amid a global commodity bust and crippling power blackouts, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposed measures, which include scrapping subsidies on gasoline and diesel, will save the state $300 million, the Zambian presidency said Friday.

A Connecticut court has rejected an attempt by Gayle Killilea to prevent her husband Seán Dunne’s Irish bankruptcy assignee from getting a ruling from the court to help him chase assets transferred by the bust developer to his wife, the Irish Times reported. Mr Dunne has also been declared bankrupt in the US and his court-appointed trustee there sought the ruling that would help him and Chris Lehane, who is overseeing his Irish bankruptcy, to pursue the assets.

China’s “national team” owns at least 6 per cent of the mainland stock market as a result of the massive state-sponsored rescue effort this year to prop up share prices following the summer equity market crash, the Financial Times reported. One member of the team, China Securities Finance Corp, the main conduit for the injection of government funds, owned 742 different stocks at the end of September, up from only two at the end of June. CSF was one of a number of government rescue funds that were corralled into buying shares when stock markets went into meltdown over the summer.

Banks in Italy fared better during the financial crisis than many of their peers, sparing Italian taxpayers the bail-outs their counterparts in other countries had to shoulder. But although they stuck to their cautious business models and avoided fuelling a big housing boom and bust, Italy’s protracted recession has enfeebled them, The Economist reported. It has caused bad loans to soar, which in turn has prevented them from supporting a still weak recovery with new lending.

The number of jobless in France rose to a new record in October even as the wider measure of people looking for work showed tentative signs of stabilising, the Financial Times reported. Figures from the labour ministry showed 42,000 additional people were out of work last month, bringing the total number of jobless to 3.59m. The increase was the biggest monthly jump in at least two years and will doubtless deal a blow to President Francois Hollande’s pledge to set the economy back on track and create more jobs.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) plans to sell two portfolios of property loans with a face value of €6 billion as it winds down its stock of risky commercial property debt, according to sources, the Irish Times reported. The loans will be split into two groups of €3 billion each and will be sold at a discount, said the sources. A spokesman for Nama declined to comment. The Government set up Nama in 2009 to take over €74 billion of commercial property loans held by Irish banks and sell them over as many as 10 years.