Headlines

The European Commission has opened infringement procedures against Ireland for allegedly not fully transposing a directive on insolvency into law, the Irish Independent reported. Brussels sent a letter of formal notice to Ireland on September 26, accusing the country of not meeting a July 17 deadline to set out how it plans to introduce electronic communications for three aspects of insolvency.

UK investment manager Intermediate Capital Group Plc is suing a real estate services firm over property valuations it says were inflated and against which it lent hundreds of millions of pounds, Bloomberg News reported. The case revolves around an estimated £500 million ($657 million) owed to ICG funds by caravan park owner RoyaleLife, people with knowledge of the matter said. The retirement-focused real estate business collapsed last year and its owner, Bob Bull, was declared bankrupt.

Japan's central bank has scope to raise interest rates further but must move cautiously and slowly to avoid hurting the economy, a dovish policymaker said on Thursday, reinforcing market views it will be in no rush to lift borrowing costs, Reuters reported. The comments from Bank of Japan board member Asahi Noguchi come a day after Japan's new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said the economy was not ready for further rate hikes, in surprisingly blunt remarks that pushed the yen lower.

Ghana received “overwhelming” participation and support from its international bondholders to restructure $13 billion of eurobonds, a key step marking the conclusion of the West African nation’s debt rework, Bloomberg News reported. Eligible holders representing 98.6% of outstanding bonds agreed to a debt exchange following a consent solicitation, paving the way for the government to issue new bonds to investors to replace existing ones, Minister of Finance Mohammed Amin Adam said in the capital, Accra on Thursday. Investors will swap their securities for new notes on or around Oct.

Investors holding Ethiopia’s defaulted dollar bonds have rejected the debt-restructuring terms proposed by the government for the $1 billion issue, Bloomberg News reported. An ad hoc committee representing holders of the sovereign notes maturing Dec. 2024 said Ethiopia’s proposal of an 18% haircut on the bond’s principal is “wholly inconsistent” with the nation’s economic fundamentals. “The committee does not consider the illustrative terms to be a reasonable starting point for negotiation,” it said in a statement Thursday.

Swiss inflation weakened to the slowest pace in more than three years, pointing to further monetary easing by the country’s central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 0.8% from a year ago in September, Switzerland’s statistics office said Thursday. That’s much lower than the 1% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey and compares with 1.1% in August. Costs for holidays and air travel fell, as did prices for gasoline, heating oil and diesel, offsetting higher charges for clothing and footwear, according to a statement.

The Philippine central bank will likely use quarter-point moves to slash its benchmark interest rate by around 175 basis points through the end of next year, according to Governor Eli Remolona, Bloomberg News reported. A 25 basis-point cut is on the cards for the Oct. 16 policy meeting, followed by a reduction of the same size in December, Remolona said. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is unlikely to resort to half-point cuts as the economy remains robust, he added.

Triton Partners is poised to hand over the keys of personnel provider Univativ to private credit fund Pemberton Asset Management, an existing lender to the company, Bloomberg News reported. A spokesperson for Pemberton confirmed the transfer of ownership of Univativ. Triton will retain an economic interest in the German firm, which finds jobs for university graduates, according to the Pemberton representative. Triton’s acquisition of Univativ was financed by a unitranche loan from Pemberton in 2017. The parties at the time did not disclose the overall size of the loan facility.

A shrinking and rapidly aging population has forced Japan, which for centuries was mostly closed off to immigrants, to allow foreign workers to enter the country and potentially stay for good, the New York Times reported. Most come from other parts of Asia, including China, Vietnam and the Philippines. That transition to employing more foreign workers has proceeded gradually at big companies in major cities over the past decade.

Italy plans to raise taxes on the companies that benefitted most from the economic turbulence of recent years in order to help bring down the country’s budget deficit, Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said, Bloomberg News reported. Giorgetti said that he is looking at levies that would apply to companies in a number of industries, without offering any further detail. Italy’s benchmark stock index fell as much as 1.5%. The 57-year-old finance chief faces a delicate balancing act in trying to persuade Italian executives to accept his plans without provoking a public backlash.