Headlines

Another obstacle to embattled developer China Evergrande Group's long-pending debt restructuring plan rekindled fears for China's crisis-hit property sector on Monday, sparking a stock sell-off, Reuters reported. Developer China Oceanwide Holdings added to investor concerns in an exchange filing which said that a Bermuda court had ordered its winding up and appointed joint provisional liquidators.

Struggling Swedish landlord SBB took a major step toward stabilizing its finances with a cash injection and a plan to divide up its operations, sending a signal that money is available despite the country’s real estate crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB — as the company is officially known — will largely close its near-term funding gap in a deal that will raise 8 billion Swedish kronor ($720 million). The shares surged as much as 40%, and the company’s bonds maturing in January 2025 jumped 6 cents on the euro, according to data complied by Bloomberg.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled on Monday the pillars of a new economic stimulus package to be compiled next month to help households ease the pain of price hikes and boost wages, Reuters reported. Kishida will instruct his cabinet on Tuesday to put together the package and swiftly set up an extra budget to fund it, he said. It will include measures to protect people from cost-push inflation, back sustainable wage and income growth, promote domestic investment to spur growth, reform to overcome dwindling populations, and encourage infrastructure investment.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said there was "very high uncertainty" over whether companies would continue raising prices and wages, stressing anew the bank's resolve to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy, Reuters reported. He also offered a cautious take on the overseas economic outlook, warning of the fallout from aggressive U.S. interest rate hikes and sluggish growth in the Chinese economy. The key to the outlook for monetary policy is whether strong wage growth and consumption, rather than cost pressures from rising import costs, become the key driver of inflation, Ueda said.

Philippine central bank Governor Eli Remolona said he is open to an unscheduled interest-rate hike before the November meeting and that a pivot to easing was unlikely in the first half of 2024, Bloomberg News reported. “I am open to an off-cycle increase,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Manila on Monday, acknowledging that his rhetoric has become “more hawkish” since taking office in July.

The cabinet of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni approved a fiscal aid package worth about €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion), including help for households coping with soaring energy bills, a government official said, Bloomberg News reported. Meloni’s right-wing government will extend tax breaks and discounts on electricity and gas bills and help low-income families pay for fuel and public transportation, the official said.

Latin America’s largest water utility is getting ready for a public share sale next year that would see Sao Paulo’s state government give up control, according to the company’s chief executive officer, Bloomberg News reported. Cia. de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo, known as Sabesp, has a “potential window” for the equity offering starting in mid-May, after Sabesp publishes its first-quarter financial results, and running until mid-August, Andre Salcedo said in an interview.

Laden with debt it couldn’t pay back, Greece nearly broke the eurozone a decade ago. Today, it is one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies, the New York Times reported. In a significant acknowledgment of the country’s turnaround, credit ratings agencies have been upgrading their appraisal of Greece’s debt, and opening the door for large foreign investors. The economy is growing at twice the eurozone average, and unemployment, while still high at 11 percent, is the lowest in over a decade. Tourists have returned in droves, fueling a construction frenzy and new jobs.

Hackers stole around $200 million from crypto firm Mixin early on Saturday, the company said on social media platform X on Monday, in what researchers say is the largest crypto theft so far this year, Reuters reported. Mixin, which lists its location on LinkedIn as Hong Kong, said the database of its network's cloud service provider was "attacked by hackers, resulting in the loss of some assets" and that "the funds involved are approximately US$200 million". Mixin describes itself as a network for transferring digital assets. It has one million users, according to its website.