Headlines

The huge scale of Chinese government intervention to staunch a stock market sell-off has been revealed by reports showing the country’s biggest state-owned banks have provided the equivalent of more than $200bn to help prop up equities, the Financial Times reported. Much larger than previously disclosed, the lending to the country’s margin finance agency highlights the sense of urgency with which top officials viewed the threat to the financial system and the broader economy as the stock market cratered earlier this month.

TP Ferro, the company that runs a high-speed rail link between Spain and France, filed for protection from creditors after failing to reach a debt restructuring agreement, its French co-owner said, Reuters reported. Construction firm Eiffage, which owns an equal share of the business with Spain's ACS, said late on Friday the link would continue to operate as the shareholders sought a quick solution to what it called an "unsustainable and precarious ... business model".

Ukraine has extended hastily assembled talks with creditors amid predictions that the country could default as early as Friday if an agreement is not reached, the Financial Times reported. Kiev’s desire to avoid the fate of Greece has encouraged both sides to tone down the combative rhetoric that has dogged negotiations over the past three months. However a principal-to-principal meeting held in Washington last week failed to elicit a deal to restructure Ukraine’s $70bn debt burden, although a joint statement declared that progress had been made.

Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie plans to take control of an unfinished $3.5 billion mega resort, currently tied up in a corporate bankruptcy process, and push it through to completion to help bolster his country's fragile economy, Reuters reported. Christie, in a speech Thursday night, called for liquidators to take control of the Baha Mar resort and casino project. A fully operational resort would employ about 5,000 people and boost the Bahamas' gross domestic product by more than 10 percent.

One of Spain’s “ghost airports”—expensive projects that were virtually unused—received just one bid in a bankruptcy auction after costing about €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) to build, The Wall Street Journal reported. The buyer’s offer: €10,000. Ciudad Real’s Central airport, about 235 kilometers south of Madrid, became a symbol of the country’s wasteful spending during a construction boom that ended with the financial crisis of 2008, the year the airport opened. The operator of the airport went bankrupt in 2012 after it failed to draw enough traffic.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed “in principle” to grant Greece an expensive third bailout designed to keep it in the euro. But the likelihood that the prospective three-year deal will fail—possibly before it starts, let alone is completed—is now estimated at higher than 50% by some at the center of events, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the almost six-year history of the debt crisis, never before has the facade of public optimism among leading actors crumbled like it has over the latest deal.

Greek banks face deep surgery including closures or mergers after a bailout but they are seen getting a brief reprieve with a capital injection before the painful overhaul begins. As part of a deal to secure new funding, Athens had to surrender much autonomy over its economy and this will include handing over more power to European institutions to decide the fate of its sick banks.

The capacity for countries to tailor national insolvency laws as they implement new bail-in legislation could store up serious problems for future bank resolution and distort the playing field for bank issuers, market participants have warned, Reuters reported. Germany and Spain have been among the first countries taking steps in transposing the EU's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) into their national frameworks.

The troubled $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort project in the Bahamas is preparing to wind down operations and cut more than 2,000 jobs if the developer fails to strike a deal quickly with its main lender, China's Export Import Bank, according to U.S. bankruptcy court filings, Reuters reported. The sprawling Baha Mar resort, developed by Sarkis Izmirlian, the son of an Armenian billionaire, had ramped up hiring earlier this year in anticipation of a March opening.

Ukrainian Eurobonds rose to a five-month high as the nation said progress was made in talks with creditors following a two-month standoff over how to restructure $19 billion of international debt, Bloomberg Business reported. The country’s $2.6 billion of notes due in July 2017 jumped 0.83 cent to 54.08 cents on the dollar at 5:13 p.m. in Kiev, the highest level since Feb. 13.