Headlines

China's embattled Country Garden is aiming to pull together a tentative plan to restructure its offshore debt by the end of this year, Reuters reported. The nation's biggest private property developer, which missed a coupon payment in October triggering default terms, then aims to start formal negotiations with offshore bondholders by February or March next year. They added the firm expects to inform key bondholders of its cash flow projections by the year's end, as part of the basis for the tentative restructuring plan. The sources declined to be identified as the matter was confidential.

After a major default, investor attention usually turns to the potential payout from credit default swaps, a type of security that acts as insurance against bankruptcy. But when one of China’s biggest property developers missed a coupon on its bonds late last month, few bothered to check whether there would be any money up for grabs, Bloomberg News reported. That’s because China’s CDS market is much less developed than in most major economies, meaning that many of the investors that bought Country Garden Holdings Ltd’s $10 billion of dollar bonds did so without hedging against default.

The British economy flatlined in the third quarter, entering what is expected to be a protracted period of stagnation on the cusp of a recession, the New York Times reported. Gross domestic product recorded no growth in July to September compared with the previous quarter, when it grew 0.2 percent. The economy was 0.6 percent larger in the third quarter than a year ago, when many businesses closed for the state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.

The Bank of England said on Friday it would start the second leg to its first system-wide stress test of how banks, insurers, pension schemes and clearing houses collectively cope with shocks involving interest rates and risky asset prices over 10 days, Reuters reported. The BoE announced in June it was launching its first sector-wide stress test or system-wide exploratory scenario (SWES), kicking off with information-gathering from over 50 firms.

UBS is facing scrutiny from Finma, Switzerland’s chief financial regulator, as it integrates with Credit Suisse following the merger of the two global banks this year, the regulator said, adding that it will appoint outside monitors to oversee the process, the Wall Street Journal reported. The risks of cyberattacks, information-technology disruptions and fraud have significantly increased during the integration of UBS and Credit Suisse, Finma said Thursday in an annual risk outlook report.

Embattled Swedish landlord SBB is facing an inflection point after one of its creditors demanded its money back, the first time such a written notice has been given, Bloomberg News reported. Stockholm-based Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB — as the firm is officially known — has been at the center of Sweden’s property crisis as landlords scramble to find ways to refinance billions of dollars of bonds amassed in the cheap-money era. Now one of those bondholders has run out of patience, saying repayment is needed on the grounds SBB breached a key term in its debt.

he Reserve Bank of Australia sharply revised up its forecasts for core inflation in the near term and warned that inflation pressures are cooling at a slower pace than anticipated against the backdrop of an economy that is proving more resilient than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trimmed mean inflation, which is central to policy decisions at the RBA, is now expected to be running at 4.0% on-year by mid-2024, up from a forecast of 3.25% on-year in August.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said that keeping the deposit rate at 4% should be enough to tame inflation, but officials will consider raising borrowing costs again if they need to, Bloomberg News reported. Weeks after policymakers refrained from a further increase for the first time since their tightening cycle began last year, she signaled to an event organized by the Financial Times that the central bank is gaining confidence that current monetary settings should do the trick.

Brazil’s annual inflation rate dropped more than expected, nearing the target range after policymakers committed to maintaining their current pace of interest rate cuts for the coming months, Bloomberg News reported. Official data released Friday showed consumer prices rose 4.82% in October from a year earlier, below the 4.87% median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Monthly inflation hit 0.24%. The central bank is set to deliver two more half-point cuts in as many meetings and bring the benchmark Selic to 11.25% by the end of January.

The International Monetary Fund has hardened its view on how Argentina is running a $44 billion loan programme that has gone off track ahead of the country's key presidential vote later in November, Reuters reported. The IMF's board of executive directors met in a previously unreported meeting on Oct. 30 for an informal briefing on Argentina by the Fund's staff, as the South American nation is battling triple-digit inflation and with net reserves in the red in the run-up to the presidential vote.