Headlines

Greece's international creditors have agreed to cut its privatization target for the current year, the head of the country's asset-sale agency said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The asset sales target has been lowered to €1.5 billion ($2.06 billion) in 2014 from a previous figure of €3.5 billion, Ioannis Emiris, chief executive of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, told reporters. The target has also been revised for the next year to €2.3 billion, slightly higher than the previous target of €2 billion.

Russia’s economy is on the brink of a technical recession this quarter after gauges of manufacturing and services showed that seasonally adjusted output probably shrank between January and March for the first time since 2010, Bloomberg News reported. The composite purchasing managers’ index dropped to 47.8 last month from 50.2 in February, HSBC Holdings Plc said today in a statement, citing data compiled by London-based Markit Economics. A reading below 50 indicates contraction. Business expectations in the services industry were close to a record low seen at the end of 2008, HSBC said.

The European Central Bank opened the door Thursday to the kind of extraordinary stimulus measures it has long resisted, even as its counterparts in the U.S. and elsewhere are winding theirs down, reflecting mounting fears about threats to Europe's economic recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. President Mario Draghi's revelation that the central bank had discussed negative interest rates and large-scale bond purchases—if needed to keep persistently low inflation from undermining growth—caught financial markets by surprise.

Nama hired receivers to some companies controlled by Garrett Kelleher, a developer who planned to build North America’s tallest building in Chicago, according to sources, the Irish Examiner reported. Nama named Mazars to take control of assets tied to Mr Kelleher’s Dublin-based Shelbourne Property Group, said the sources. Nama is seeking to recoup the €71.2bn of loans owed by developers that the agency bought from banks after the country’s property market collapsed.

China's government, concerned that the economy is faltering, said it would target more spending to boost growth, but it left unanswered a question over whether monetary policy will be eased as well, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's State Council, the government's executive body, unveiled Wednesday a combination of spending moves to rev up China's economic engine. They include additional spending on railways, upgraded housing for low-income households and tax relief for struggling small businesses.

Cypriot lawmakers must make it easier for banks to seize property when borrowers default to tackle the issue of bad loans, the country’s most pressing issue, central bank governor Panicos Demetriades said, Bloomberg News reported. Borrowers who intentionally fail to repay loans need to be reined in, Demetriades said in an interview yesterday in Athens. A possible political fight may delay planned legislation to tackle the Mediterranean nation’s stock of bad debt, he said. The law is required under the country’s 10 billion-euro ($13.8 billion) international rescue put together a year ago.

The number of conditions the International Monetary Fund (IMF) attaches to its loans has grown in recent years, despite promises to limit what critics see as onerous requirements, according to a new study, the Irish Times reported. The Eurodad network of European development groups also said nations desperate for cash are at a disadvantage in their dealings with the IMF, likening them to negotiating “at the barrel of a gun.” The IMF attached nearly 20 conditions on average to each loan it approved in the past two years, Eurodad found.

France is seeking to shorten restructuring disputes after more than 63,000 companies filed for insolvency last year, the most since 2009, according to data compiled by Altares SAS, a French information provider. Creditor advisers say the plans, which come into force on July 1, aren’t sufficient to allow lenders to take control of ailing businesses, Bloomberg News reported. “This reform doesn’t go far enough,” said Arnaud Joubert, a Paris-based restructuring adviser at Rothschild speaking before a conference today in the French capital on the new rules.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG pilots Wednesday began what could become the longest walkout in the German airline's history, grounding 3,800 flights over the next three days, in a protest over changes to retirement benefits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The three-day strike will affect some 425,000 passengers on the premium Lufthansa service and the low-cost unit Germanwings, Lufthansa said. Despite the cancellations, the situation at Frankfurt airport Wednesday was calm as passengers had received ample warning about the walkout.

China's rating agencies are likely to keep a long-held assumption of government bailouts built into most ratings despite the country's first domestic bond defaults and warnings from Beijing that there is no blanket guarantee of support, Reuters reported. Last month, Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology (Chaori), defaulted when it missed an interest payment on a bond, and this week a newspaper reported a small construction materials company had also defaulted on an interest payment.