Headlines

Brazilian engineering conglomerate Grupo OAS expects revenue to shrink more than 50 percent by 2017 as it sells operations and refocuses on civil construction after filing for bankruptcy protection due to a bribery scandal at a state-run oil company, Reuters reported. The filing by OAS, the third-biggest builder in Brazil last year, was the highest-profile bankruptcy filing to follow a sweeping police investigation of a price-fixing and kickback scheme at state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.

Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday that it would incur 1.5 billion euros, or $1.6 billion, in costs from legal proceedings as reports surfaced that the bank was set to accept a record penalty for its involvement in a plan to rig the benchmark rates used to set trillions of dollars in interest rates, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), which manages Ireland’s national debt, was not consulted by the government about the September 2008 bank guarantee, despite two of its most senior officials being in Government Buildings on the night the decision was made. This emerged in evidence given to the Oireachtas banking inquiry by Brendan McDonagh, the current chief executive of Nama, the National Asset Management Agency. Mr McDonagh was the NTMA’s director of finance at the time of the guarantee.

Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco posted the worst annual loss in its 96-year history on Wednesday after writing down the value of its stores by £4.7 billion, the Irish Times reported. Also hurt by an accounting scandal and sliding sales due to pressure from discounters and a brutal price war the supermarket made a statutory pre-tax loss of £6.38 billion (€8.9bn) in the year to February 28th. The grocer, which was recently overtaken by Supervalu as the largest supermarket in Ireland, announced a 6.3 per cent fall in sales here over this period, with full-year sales falling to €2.6bn.

ANA Holdings Inc said it has agreed to acquire a stake of up to 19.9 percent in bankrupt budget carrier Skymark Airlines Inc, gaining access to highly coveted landing slots and strengthening its lead over rival Japan Airlines Co., Reuters reported. Under the deal, Japanese private equity firm Integral Corp, which has provided funds to keep Skymark in business since its bankruptcy in January, will hold just over 50 percent. An ambitious expansion programme, including plans to fly Airbus A380 superjumbos on overseas routes, stretched Skymark's finances, leaving it vulnerable to competition.

Argentina’s thirst for dollars has been temporarily quenched by a $1.4bn bond sale but a state visit to Russia this week is unlikely to yield significant support for its languishing economy, the Financial Times reported. Hindered from issuing debt in international capital markets by a long-running dispute with a group of holdout hedge funds, Argentina succeeded in issuing dollar-denominated debt under local law on Tuesday to bolster precariously low foreign exchange reserves.

Target’s exodus from Canada has left gaping holes at some of the most prominent shopping centers across the country, the biggest symbol of an exceptional period of retailing turmoil, the International New York Times reported. As Target Canada closed the last of its 133 stores this month — completing the parent company’s hasty retreat from its first international expansion, a move that prompted a $4.5 billion write-down — many landlords were left holding properties whose fates are uncertain.

Facing calls to explain why banks had largely failed to pass on to consumers and businesses two policy rate cuts this year, Raghuram Rajan, the normally easy-going governor of the Reserve Bank of India, launched a rare attack. “Banks are sitting on money,” he said after the RBI’s latest interest rate meeting. “Their marginal cost of funding has fallen.

Mexican homebuilder Geo has called a meeting to present a debt restructuring plan, which it hopes will be approved by the majority of its creditors, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The meeting will be on May 6 in Mexico City, Geo said in a notice to the Mexican stock exchange. The company, whose shares have been suspended since 2013 for not reporting financial statements, entered into bankruptcy protection last April.

Scotland would need to make “substantial” tax rises or spending cuts if it won full control over taxation and spending, a respected think-tank has warned, undermining claims by the Scottish National party it would be able to bring austerity to an end, the Financial Times reported. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that a Scottish government could face a hole of up to £10bn if it were given responsibility to balance its books over the course of the next parliament. This is equivalent to nearly 5 per cent of Scottish gross domestic product.