Headlines

The Index tower on Dubai’s answer to Wall Street has 23 floors of empty offices out of the 25 it opened in 2011, Bloomberg News reported today. The office space in the Index on Sheikh Zayed Road was sold in pieces to nine different investors under a system known as strata title, according to developer Union Properties PJSC, meaning potential tenants face the prospect of having multiple landlords.

Portugal's Constitutional Court on Thursday struck down planned cuts in retirement benefits for public employees, its fifth ruling this year against government measures to satisfy international bailout lenders and regain full access to financial markets, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The court's repeated rebuffs have become the biggest obstacle to government efforts to narrow a budget deficit and prove to creditors and investors that its accounts are sustainable.

Canada's economy expanded faster than expected in October, driven by the largest monthly gain in manufacturing in nearly two years, suggesting fourth-quarter growth may not be far off the strong gain seen in the previous three months, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Gross domestic product, the sum total of goods and services produced in the country, grew 0.3 percent to 1.60 trillion Canadian dollars ($1.51 trillion), the same pace as in September, Statistics Canada said Monday.

The Government has explored pooling loss-making tracker mortgages in state-guaranteed asset-backed security structures “for repurchase with various counterparties”, the IMF said in its final review under the bailout, issued yesterday, the Irish Times reported. The review calls for greater progress in addressing problems in the banking sector, particularly in relation to mortgage arrears and new lending. “Banks . . . need to rebuild their profitability, although in the context of low ECB policy rates, they face challenges from the structure of their assets,” the IMF said.

A digital clock inaugurated by Paulo Portas, Portugal’s deputy prime minister, has begun marking the six-month countdown to Lisbon’s planned exit from its €78bn bailout programme. But a senior International Monetary Fund official has warned that it could take at least another 10 years to address the country’s deep-rooted structural challenges.

Canadian consumer debt is expected to rise to a record high by the end of next year due to a borrowing spree for new cars, home renovations and household items, says a new study released Thursday, The Toronto Star reported. Average total debt, excluding mortgages, is expected to jump by more than $1,000 from an estimated $27,743 in the last three months to an all-time high of $28,853 by the end of 2014, according to TransUnion, one of Canada’s largest credit bureaus.

Both the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, and State Bank of India, the largest of the big, state-owned banks, are voicing determination to go after recalcitrant borrowers as the volume of problem debts, whether acknowledged or not, continues to grow, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. It is not clear whether this time is different and the banks are really serious about putting pressure on borrowers who are unable or (in many cases) unwilling to repay the banks. But they should be.

The liquidators for the Ross Asset Management group of companies found to be a Ponzi scheme are in talks with three former investors over about $3.8 million of payments they received in the two years leading up to the group's eventual collapse last year, The New Zealand Herald reported. PwC's John Fisk and David Bridgman are looking at transactions they might be able to reverse as they seek to claw back as much of the $100 million to $115 million that was lost in the fraudulent scheme for some 1,200 investors.

As mortgage defaults rise, lenders will have to set aside money to cover losses, hurting profits, according to Juan Villen, head of mortgages at Spanish property web site Idealista.com, Bloomberg reported. Spanish banks absorbed 87 billion euros ($120 billion) of impairment charges last year after Economy Minister Luis de Guindos forced them to record more defaults on loans to developers. The government took 41 billion euros in European assistance to shore up its failing lenders.

European Union finance ministers agreed late Wednesday on a new system to centralize control of failing euro-zone lenders, in the hope that it will stop expensive banking crises from ruining the finances of entire countries, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal brings to an end a monthslong standoff between Berlin and other European capitals over the design of the so-called Single Resolution Mechanism, and particularly over its ability to tap European taxpayer money as a last resort.