Headlines

Malaysia raised fuel prices for the first time since 2010, joining neighboring Indonesia in curbing subsidies that have stretched government budgets and threatened investor confidence, Bloomberg reported. The price of the widely used RON 95 grade of gasoline will rise 20 sen to 2.10 ringgit ($0.64) a liter at midnight, according to an announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak Monday in Putrajaya, outside of Kuala Lumpur. Diesel will increase 20 sen to 2 ringgit a liter.

Next Monday sees the new insolvency service open for business. The body has already had 4,500 inquiries and its boss, Lorcan O’Connor, expects thousands of people to avail of its services, the Irish Times reported in a commentary. Overborrowed and insolvent individuals will now have a couple of ways out of their problems other than fully fledged bankruptcy. The insolvency service is only part of the Government/troika strategy for dealing with overindebtedness.

Gippsland Secured Investments is expected to be placed in receivership today, owing 3500 investors about $150 million, after a last-ditch attempt to save the mortgage fund was rejected by the Federal Court, The Australian reported. A group of businessmen with close ties to Gippsland, including former Woolworths chairman John Dahlsen, had been battling to save the company from collapse in recent weeks.

France has stepped up its assault on tax havens by blacklisting Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Jersey, in a sudden move set to impose heavy penalties on thousands of French individuals and businesses, the Financial Times reported. The three offshore centres have been added to a list of “non-co-operative jurisdictions”, triggering withholding taxes of up to 75 per cent on payments from France.

Chinese bank executives signaled concern that bad loans could rise, as earnings continued to slow in the face of declining economic growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's biggest bank by assets, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. 601988.SH +0.76% said Thursday its first-half net profit rose 12.4% from a year earlier to 138.35 billion yuan ($22.62 billion). Bank President Yi Huiman said the bank would remain cautious against a potential pickup in bad loans after its non-performing loan ratio increased marginally over the first half of the year.

Permanent TSB bank, which is more than 99 per cent owned by the State, booked a €429 million impairment charge on its non-performing mortgage loans in the first half of this year, the Irish Times reported. This was €5 million less than in the same period of 2012 but highlights the scale of the challenge still facing the bank as it seeks to tackle its mortgage arrears. Of this figure, €236 million of the impairment related to home loans in the Republic and €102 million to buy-to-let investment properties.

The owner of popular Australian fashion labels Ksubi, Insight and Something Else has been placed in voluntary administration, as the group prepare for a restructure, SmartCompany.com.au reported. Sydney-based company Bleach Group entered administration on August 27. It now has a new corporate ownership thanks to a share placement from an unnamed US private equity group. Bleach Group says the move was motivated by the closure of its Asian-based supply chain. "The need for a voluntary administration... is regrettable," chief executive Mark Byers said in a statement.

The flagship oil company controlled by Brazilian businessman Eike Batista plans to present a proposal to restructure its debts in two weeks' time, in which bonds would be swapped for shares and the firm would try to raise fresh capital, according to a person familiar with the transaction, The Wall Street Journal reported. The fortunes of OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações SA, the linchpin in Mr. Batista's sprawling industrial empire, collapsed after its only operating oil field failed to live up to expectations when it began production in mid-2012.

Major Chinese cities are turning to fresh measures to temper home-buyer enthusiasm amid a renewed surge in housing prices, but analysts say the moves are unlikely to halt the rise, The Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing's local housing bureau has made it tougher for property developers to presell apartments in recent weeks, giving approvals only to projects that have completed a sufficient amount of construction.

Euro zone officials are considering a big overhaul of Greece’s sputtering privatisation programme that would move most of the state-owned real estate intended for sale into a Luxembourg-based holding company managed by foreign experts, the Irish Times reported.