Headlines

President Vladimir Putin called on the International Monetary Fund to help Ukraine repay a $3 billion bond due December, as Russia said it was weighing plans for a possible default on the debt, Bloomberg News reported. The Washington-based fund is preparing to allow countries supported by a loan program to default on debt to official creditors, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at a government meeting with Putin on Tuesday.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd.’s dollar bonds headed for their best rally in six months on speculation a restructuring agreement with an onshore lender will allow the beleaguered Chinese developer to focus on resolving a stalemate with offshore creditors. The Shenzen-based real estate group’s Shanghai unit has returned to normal operations after reaching a settlement with Bank of China Ltd., spokeswoman Zhou Ting said in an e-mail Tuesday, declining to elaborate on the amount of debt involved.

Papierfabrik Walsum has postponed the opening of insolvency proceedings again. In reply to an enquiry, the spokesman for the responsible lawyers office, HRM Henneke Röpke Partnerschaft Rechtsanwälte, said that negotiations are still underway with potential investors. It was added that demand for the products of the Norske Skog subsidiary enables the paper machine to continue to run at full capacity, and customers welcome the change in the product mix. Regular insolvency proceedings are now likely to be opened on 1 November.

Despite a severe economic downturn in a region whose growth once seemed limitless, many energy companies have too much invested in the oil sands to slow down or turn off the taps, the International New York Times reported. In addition to the continued operation of existing plants, construction persists on projects that began before the price fell, largely because billions of dollars have already been spent on them. Oil sands projects are based on 40-year investment time frames, so their owners are being forced to wait out slumps.

Greece’s parliament Monday began debating the first bill containing tough austerity measures and economic overhauls agreed under its new bailout program, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bill, which is expected to go to a vote on Friday, includes stricter pension rules, tax hikes and tougher fines for tax evasion.

The ailing mining and trading giant Glencore has intensified efforts to slash its $30bn (£20bn) debt pile by putting copper mines in Australia and Chile up for sale, The Independent reported. Glencore said it was ready to spin off the Cobar mine in New South Wales and the Lomas Bayas mine in Chile’s Atacama desert, following “a number of unsolicited expressions of interest for these mines from various potential buyers”. Citi analysts put a potential $1bn price-tag on the two mines, based on a long-term copper price of $6,200 a tonne.

Several European countries are taking action to water down new global capital rules for their biggest financial institutions, causing concern among investors and EU officials, the Financial Times reported. France is set to become the latest country to introduce legislation that would save its leading banks from having to issue tens of billions of euros of bonds to meet the rules agreed by global regulators a fortnight ago, people familiar with the situation said. Italy and Germany have begun similar processes.

The Insolvency Service of Ireland has said its latest report shows a continuing take up of the newly introduced alternative solutions to bankruptcy, RTÉ reported. In a report detailing its work for the third quarter of the year, the ISI said that almost 500 new applications were made to its service in the three months from June to September. The total debt involved in the new cases created in the third quarter was about €186m and the total debt involved in bankruptcy adjudications for the same period was roughly €129m.

Volkswagen has already set aside billions in potential costs related to its emissions-rigging scandal, the Irish Times reported. Mounting speculation that the crisis-stricken company will sell stock to raise funds is sending its non-voting shares to the biggest discount versus voting ones in six years. A capital increase would dilute the value of the more commonly traded, non-voting stock - and investors have taken note. The price of those shares has fallen €25.60 below its less-traded stock, reversing a premium from before the scandal broke.

After a tumultuous year for Greeks, their politicians and their banks, a new Syriza-led government must by next week legislate measures to recapitalise all four lenders with about €15bn of money from the country’s €86bn third bailout, the Financial Times reported. There is no room this time for the slippage that marked the previous Syriza administration’s attempts at structural reform.