Headlines

Interest rates in Brazil would make an American loan shark blush. Credit cards charge more than 240 percent a year. Bank loans top 100 percent, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. For a rising number of consumers in need of cash, a pawnshop is actually the better option. When Angela Pereira, a stay-at-home mother in São Paulo, needed extra money to buy her daughter school supplies, she pawned a gold chain to get 530 reais, or about $210.
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Multinationals will face a penalty tax if they are found to have artificially moved profits out of the United Kingdom to lower tax jurisdictions, such as the Republic, the British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne has said, the Irish Times reported. Delivering his autumn statement to the house of commons, Mr Osborne, who is bidding to bring in £5 billion-a-year more from curbing tax avoidance, said he was determined to ensure that multi-nationals “pay their fair share”. “That’s not fair to other British firms. It’s not fair to the British people either.
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Dubai World, the government-owned conglomerate, is set to use provisions of the emirate’s special bankruptcy law to ensure an orderly process in the restructuring of US$15 billion of debts, The National reported. A meeting of international bank creditors in London this week gave majority approval to the new refinancing scheme, which has been under discussion since April. Voters representing two-thirds of the total value of loans supported the plan.
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Hindalco is gearing up for a mega debt restructuring drive. CNBC-TV18 learns from sources that over the next one year Hindalco seeks to restructure its debt of Rs 63,000 crore in three phases. Hindalco plans to refinance Rs 6,000 crore debt in the first tranche through dollarising debt. Move may reduce company’s debt cost by up to Rs 150 crore. Going ahead, it may raise ECB issue of up to USD 500 million in the second tranche. Discussions are still on to carve out a plan for the remaining debt. In the third tranche, it will actively look to reduce debt.
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Berlin has backed the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council’s warning about the dangers of the Government departing from its path of consolidation and reform, the Irish Times reported. In a paper the federal finance ministry said Ireland’s “awareness of its problems and reform courage” were crucial in identifying and tackling its challenges. All the more reason, it added, not to let up now with consolidation. “I would be unrealistic to expect macroeconomic imbalances built up over a long time to be addressed in a short period,” the paper noted.
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When the European Banking Authority, the European Union banking regulator, recently released an opinion indicating that a number of global banks had wrongly classified some of their complex new bonus structures, perhaps in violation of European law, many of the banks immediately scrambled to reach another regulator — a few blocks away. That regulator, Britain’s Prudential Regulatory Authority, had already approved some of the pay structures, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.
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Four months before he aims to become prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras is using the example of Germany’s post-World War II debt relief to bolster his case for a writedown on his country’s liabilities toward euro area member states and the European Central Bank, Bloomberg News reported. “While generosity was extended to Germany, Germany refuses to extend the same generosity,” the 40-year-old opposition leader said in a speech in Athens today, referring to a 1953 deal to write off 50 percent of some of Germany’s external debt.
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The Reserve Bank of India will soon allow banks more flexibility while restructuring corporate loans, The Indian Express reported. Banks will be able to increase their equity holdings above the current cap of 10 per cent in companies undergoing debt restructuring through conversion of loan into equity. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said the RBI is planning to unveil two measures to enable more productive loan restructuring. It is considering extending the 5/25 rule for fresh lending.
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Mexican homebuilder Urbi has filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The creditors which have so far signed the restructuring plan held some 21.9 billion pesos ($1.55 billion) in debt, equivalent to around 53.3 percent of the total claims on Urbi, the company said in a statement. Urbi, Mexico's third-largest homebuilder in recent years, is following its bigger peers after struggling under heavy debt loads and slumping sales of their cheap, single-unit homes in developments often located far from urban centers.
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Dutch sports-car maker Spyker NV said Tuesday it has filed for a financial restructuring in a Dutch court, seeking protection from creditors as it tries to resolve liquidity problems, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement, the company said it is seeking financing “arranged by independent financiers” to continue operations and pay wages. “Over the past few years, Spyker has faced a number of serious difficulties and challenges resulting from, among others, the legacy of the F1 era and the acquisition of Saab Automobile AB,” Victor R.
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