Headlines

Standard & Poor’s warned Brazil on Tuesday that its investment grade rating was at risk as falling growth and political infighting hurt efforts to restore order to public finances. The agency placed Brazil’s foreign currency rating, which is one notch above junk, on negative outlook for possible downgrade, initially weakening Brazil’s currency, the real, up to 2 per cent against the dollar, the Financial Times reported.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes is to retain 144 shops nationwide and continue to employ over 700 people in Ireland following the High Court’s approval of its rescue plan on Tuesday, the Irish Times reported. The UK bookmaker, which entered the examinership process in April in order to restructure the business, will now close 52 of its 196 outlets while about 90 people will leave the business as a result of a voluntary redundancy scheme.

It is one of the cheapest places on earth to drill for oil — but also among the most dangerous. And, right now, Kurdistan’s intrepid band of western operators are sweating. Tumbling oil prices and a dispute over crude sales between war-torn Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdish administration have left three foreign operators — Genel Energy, Gulf Keystone Petroleum and DNO — owed hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Chinese government is struggling to contain the collapse of a stock-market rally it helped engineer, announcing late Monday that it will step up its purchases of shares to prop up sagging indexes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Chinese shares suffered their biggest one-day percentage drop in over eight years Monday, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of market value and putting an end to a three-week period of stability Beijing had achieved by intervening with stock purchases and other steps to stop the market’s slide.

Yanis Varoufakis has insisted he did nothing improper as part of a five-month clandestine project he ran as Greek finance minister that prepared for his country’s possible exit from the euro, the Financial Times reported. The scheme, which was almost completed but not fully implemented, involved hacking into Greece’s independent tax service to set up a parallel payment system — accessing individuals’ private identification numbers and copying them on to a computer controlled by a “childhood friend” of Mr Varoufakis.

Spiraling German labor costs are starting to undermine the country’s famed competitiveness, threatening to hurt economic growth and investment in Europe’s largest economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Propelled by a healthy economy and record-low unemployment, labor costs here are rising fast, as the government has further tightened its grip on the labor market, driving up companies’ wage bills.

Romania seems to be receiving more than its fair share of attention — some good, some not so good. On the positive front, the economy, like others in central Europe that are plugged in to better German demand, is growing strongly. On the negative side, there are three main areas of concern. First, Romania is not immune to the problems in Greece, being principally affected through the banking system. There are four Greek-owned banks that are notably active in Romania, which together account for about 10 per cent of total bank assets.

The cost of completing the stalled $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas has risen to $400 million, according to a letter from the project's developer. Baha Mar Ltd, run by Sarkis Izmirlian, has offered to invest $200 million in the project alongside the resort's main lender, China's Export-Import Bank, according to a letter viewed by Reuters.

Priory Hall developer Thomas McFeely will contest an application to extend his bankruptcy by five years, the Irish Times reported. The application has been brought on grounds including his alleged failure to disclose all his assets, the High Court has heard. Mr McFeely (67) was adjudicated bankrupt in Ireland in July 2012 and his bankruptcy is due to expire on Thursday, July 30th this year.

Ukraine has staved off a default on its $70bn debt pile, rekindling hopes that Kiev can cut a deal with creditors to restructure a substantial proportion of its dues, the Financial Times reported. The cash-strapped eastern European country, which is in the midst of a deep recession and a separatist conflict against Russia-backed rebels, made a $120m interest payment due on Friday as part of its ongoing battle to convince creditors to write down the face value of their holdings. The government originally hoped to strike an agreement to restructure $15.3bn of debt before the summer.