Headlines

Centrica issued its second profits warning in six months yesterday, after admitting 180,000 households had quit its domestic arm British Gas, and the mild winter meant its remaining customers turned their heating down, The Independent reported. The Big Six supplier said it would not raise prices for British Gas customers this year. However, despite admitting that wholesale energy costs had fallen, it made no offer to cut prices.

The European Central Bank on Thursday held interest rates steady, but signaled that it was likely to take action next month to stimulate the euro zone economy, amid growing concern about economic fallout from the crisis in Ukraine, the International New York Times reported. Mario Draghi, the president of the central bank, said Europe would suffer from effects like a decline in the Russian economy, stiffer economic sanctions or higher gas prices. “It’s a very complex geopolitical picture, which could evolve,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference in Brussels.

Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers, a Saudi family-owned conglomerate that defaulted on its debts near the beginning of the financial crisis in 2009, met with creditors in Dubai on Wednesday to propose a new settlement: a cash payment of about 20 cents for every dollar of debt, plus recoveries it makes through lawsuits against Maan al Sanea, a Saudi businessman the Algosaibis claim caused the defaults through an alleged $10 billion fraud, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported.

Sweden’s central bank sounded the alarm on the Nordic country’s huge household debt burden amid an acrimonious debate on whether it should instead be focusing more on fighting deflation. The Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, published a study on Wednesday that it claimed showed debt levels were higher than feared, with the average indebted Swede owing 296 per cent of their annual income while the average mortgage holder owed 370 per cent.

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro state have asked a Brazilian court to freeze the assets of businessman Eike Batista as a precautionary measure, a spokesman for the public prosecutors said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The spokesperson said he couldn't provide further details because the probe is subject to judicial secrecy. Mr. Batista is under investigation by the federal police for alleged financial crimes connected to his distressed oil company, formerly known as OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações SA. Mr. Batista couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The Czech central bank sees an “increasing” chance of a later exit from its unorthodox policy easing after it lowered its inflation forecast and maintained a cap on koruna gains. Policy makers in Prague left their benchmark interest rate at 0.05 percent today for a 12th meeting, matching the estimates of all 12 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The bank also reaffirmed a commitment not to let the koruna “strengthen too much” beyond 27 per euro, a limit on the currency pair set on Nov. 7.

Barclays Plc is set to announce plans to cut thousands of jobs and shrink its investment bank as Chief Executive Antony Jenkins tries to get his turnaround plan for the British bank back on track after a bad 10 months. Jenkins, who took the CEO hot seat in August 2012 after investment banker Bob Diamond was ousted following a scandal over the rigging of benchmark interest rates, will lay out a revised strategy for Barclays on Thursday. His original plan to cut jobs and improve profitability, set out to much fanfare less than 15 months ago, needs some significant revisions.

Workers for one the major contractors constructing Canberra's Majura Parkway have been stood down as the company enters voluntary administration, ABC News reported. Earthmoving works by Hewatt stopped on the $288 million road project on Wednesday after negotiations with lead contractor Fulton Hogan failed. About 200 workers met with voluntary administrators PPB Advisory this morning at another of Hewatt's worksites, the Horse Park Drive extension at Gungahlin.

Iceland’s government proposed disbanding the Housing Financing Fund, the nation’s largest mortgage provider, as the lender struggles to make a profit amid loan losses and competition from commercial banks, Bloomberg News reported. The island nation will wind down the operations over the next 30 years and continue to service the lender’s 480 billion kronur ($4.29 billion) in bonds, the government said yesterday in Reykjavik. Legislation to push through the changes will be introduced in parliament this fall, allowing for the suspension of HFF’s current daily operations.

China's central bank said it would strengthen monitoring of default risk from loans to the property sector, local-government financing companies and industries struggling with overcapacity, The Wall Street Journal reported. In its first-quarter monetary report, the People's Bank of China said Tuesday that it would aim to prevent these risks from spreading more widely through the financial sector. Several smaller property developers have defaulted on loans in recent months amid slower growth in the housing market and the economy overall.