Headlines

Castle Water Ltd. and KKR & Co. have been invited to provide more detail on their bids as the process for owning the debt-laden utility Thames Water progresses, Bloomberg News reported. The US alternative asset manager and water firm Castle have been asked to submit revised bids this week. Both have previously put forward non-binding offers to inject around £4 billion ($5.1 billion) into Thames Water to help turn around the utility. The offer from infrastructure investor Covalis Capital, who is also a junior creditor of Thames, is currently less favored by Thames Water.

National company law tribunal (NCLT) has admitted Ansal Properties and Infrastructure (Ansal API) into insolvency proceedings after the company was unable to defend itself against a petition filed by IL&FS Financial services, as per a court order on Tuesday, the Economic Times of India reported. IL&FS Financial Services has claimed that the listed Ansal API has failed to honour loans of Rs. 257 crore. It also claimed that Ansal API had entered into a settlement with it in 2022 but was not able to meet the terms of that settlement.

China needs to vastly step up its efforts to cleanse the balance sheets of the nation’s local governments, giving them the space needed to support consumer spending and strengthen the economy, one of the nation’s most prominent economists said, Bloomberg News reported. The central government should take on at least 20 trillion yuan ($2.8 trillion) worth of local sovereign debt, David Li Daokui, an economics professor at Tsinghua University and a regular adviser on policy to Beijing, said in an interview.

Hong Kong plans to lower taxes and further cut levies on property transactions, as part of efforts to get economic activity humming again amid an increasingly fraught trade environment, the Wall Street Journal reported. In the annual presentation of the budget for the next fiscal year, the Asian financial hub will reduce salaries tax and businesses’ profit tax by 100%, subject to a ceiling of 1,500 Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to around US$193, said Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan on Wednesday.

Thailand’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate amid global uncertainties and concerns about their potential impact on the Southeast Asian economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Thailand’s monetary policy committee announced Wednesday that it voted six to one to cut the policy rate to 2.00% from 2.25%.

Argentina’s economy expanded more than expected in December, solidifying the country’s bounceback in the last quarter of the year under President Javier Milei’s watch, Bloomberg News reported. Economic activity rose 0.5% from November, more than the 0.2% median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Monthly growth beat expectations the previous month, too. From a year ago, the gross domestic product proxy grew 5.5%, compared with the median estimate of 3.5%, according to government data published Tuesday.

Japan's automobile industry association urged the government on Tuesday to try to shield Japanese automakers from tariffs that the United States may impose on imports of autos and parts, the Japan Times reported. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers' Association is worried about damage to the economies of both countries if U.S. President Donald Trump's administration proceeds with hefty tariffs on auto imports from Japan, Mexico and Canada, JAMA Chairman Masanori Katayama said. Trump said last week that he wants to impose 25% tariffs on imports of autos as soon as April 2.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama), the state’s ‘bad bank’, appears to have got the best available price for a Northern Ireland portfolio of loans known as Project Eagle, a seven-year investigation has found, the Irish Independent reported. Nama had previously been criticised by the Comptroller & Auditor General for making a loss of £162m (€195m) from selling assets in Northern Ireland, and for the way it handled the sale. This prompted the Irish government to set up a commission of inquiry in 2017, which reported last October after several extensions.

UniCredit has asked German antitrust authorities to approve its move to take a substantial stake in Commerzbank, another key hurdle for the Italian bank to overcome as it pursues a possible takeover of the German lender, Reuters reported. UniCredit has built a web of financial transactions to secure a Commerzbank stake of just under 30%, putting it on the cusp of a full-blown takeover of one of the most important lenders to Germany's small and medium-sized Mittelstand companies.

The Indian government is considering changes to its bankruptcy laws, including streamlining court processes, amid growing concerns over lengthy proceedings and low recovery rates, the Economic Times of India reported. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India is finalizing a set of proposals aimed at speeding up resolution. Public consultation is set to end Tuesday, though the deadline may be extended. Global investors have long been cautious about lending in India, where insolvency cases can often run for years with poor recoveries.