Headlines

Chinese state-controlled firm AVIC is to buy the commercial business of German aircraft engine maker Thielert, banking on a surge in demand for diesel plane engines in China and other emerging markets, Reuters reported. AVIC and Thielert, which filed for insolvency more than five years ago, did not provide financial details of the deal announced on Tuesday.

Ireland is emphatically not a tax haven, according to the head of the tax division of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Irish Times reported. The comments from Pascal Saint-Amans come in the wake of accusations made in parliamentary committees in both the US and UK that large global companies use Ireland as part of their efforts to pay minimal amounts of corporation taxes in any jurisdiction.

Deutsche Bank AG is accelerating plans to reduce the size of its balance sheet amid persistent concerns among regulators and investors on both sides of the Atlantic that the bank is carrying too much risk, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Deutsche Bank plans to increase its so-called leverage ratio, which measures the capital base against total assets, to 3 percent by 2015, by shedding assets and retaining earnings. The bank is required to meet the target by 2018. Most analysts put Deutsche Bank's current leverage ratio at around 2 percent, one of the lowest among major banks.

British antitrust regulators said that large companies should be required to put their auditing contract out to tender every five years in a move that falls short of proposals from the European Union to spur auditor competition, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The requirement to tender auditing contracts every five years should apply to companies in the FTSE 350 Index, the U.K. Competition Commission said yesterday. The regulator stopped short of proposing that companies be forced to switch auditors, a move it was considering in February.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said that the country's central bank is right to consider new tools to curb housing demand, including limits on low-deposit mortgages, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “Absent of any other alternative, then rapidly increasing house prices may see the Reserve Bank raising interest rates,” Key said. Limiting lending on deposits of as little as 5 percent of the purchase price will hurt first-home buyers, who are struggling to save bigger downpayments as New Zealand house-price inflation accelerates.

The Nicole Farhi name will stay on Britain's high streets after the fashion chain was purchased by Fenn Wright Manson owner Maxine Hargreaves-Adams, the firm's administrators said yesterday, Reuters reported. Zolfo Cooper, which was appointed as Nicole Farhi's administrator on July 3, said that the disposal comprises six stores, nine concessions and the wholesale and e-commerce parts of the business. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Read more.

Foreign capital flowed out of China in June as economic growth slowed and a rise in the Chinese currency stalled, contributing to a credit crunch that briefly strained the nation's banking system, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The credit crunch has eased considerably since last month as the central bank injected liquidity in the interbank market, where banks lend funds to each other, but the squeeze raised doubts about the strength of China's banking and financial system. The net outflow of foreign capital in June was the first since November.

Thirty-three U.K. lenders including HSBC Holdings Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc agreed to allow customers to switch their checking accounts between lenders in seven days, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. From September, lenders will redirect payments and deposits for customers moving their account to another bank, the Payments Council said. Customers will be refunded any charges should the process go wrong, according to the body, which is funded by banks and mutual lenders. Moving accounts can take as long as 30 days at present.

China eliminated the lower limit on lending rates offered by the nation’s financial institutions as growth slows and authorities expand the role of markets in the world’s second-biggest economy, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. The change, effective on Saturday, removes a floor set at 30 percent below the current 6 percent benchmark, according to a People’s Bank of China statement yesterday. While the move temporarily jolted world stocks higher, the PBOC acknowledged that it was a limited step and said that freeing up deposit rates would be more important.

U.S. private-equity firm Kawa Capital Management Inc. agreed to take over Conergy AG, once Germany’s biggest solar company, two weeks after the Hamburg-based company filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The transaction, due to be completed in the second half of August, will focus on Conergy’s main brand and most global sales and service activities, Conergy said. Conergy and its domestic counterparts are under pressure as subsidies for renewable energy fall at home and competition from China depresses margins and panel prices.