Headlines

U.K. inflation fell more sharply than expected to the lowest level in 2 1/2 years, bolstering investor expectations that the Bank of England will be able to reduce borrowing costs in the coming months, Bloomberg News reported. The Consumer Prices Index rose 3.4% in February from a year earlier, compared with 4% pace the month before, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The figure was lower than the median of 3.5% predicted by economists and the BOE, although it was in line with the Bloomberg Economics’s forecast.

SBB, the landlord at the center of Sweden’s property crisis, saw its credit rating cut two notches by Fitch Ratings and may face another cut to “selective default” by S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. Fitch downgraded the senior unsecured debt rating of Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, as it is otherwise known, to CCC+ from B due to increased property disposals and tight liquidity, the credit evaluator said in a statement on Tuesday. S&P placed the company on watch for a possible downgrade to selective default, according to a separate statement.

China Life Insurance Co. is in crunch talks with lenders to an office tower in Canary Wharf to help stave off the locality’s third potential major default, as the eastern financial district of London grapples with some of the city’s highest vacancy rates, Bloomberg News reported. The landlord is in discussions with Lloyds Banking Group Plc, which originally financed 10 Upper Bank Street before syndicating the vast majority of the debt to several Chinese banks, about a plan to avoid an event of default ahead of the loan’s maturity next month, people with knowledge of the negotiations said.

Real estate companies undergoing the so-called reverse insolvency are facing bridge funding challenges due to lack of clarity on the applicability of rules, according to a recent commentary in MoneyControl.com. Under the normal insolvency route, any creditor who provides bridge funding gets super priority in terms of dues. However under reverse insolvency, there is no clarity on how such funding will be treated. Hence, potential creditors are reluctant to infuse bridge capital, say legal experts. Generally, bridge capital is considered senior to other existing debts in an insolvency case.

The Czech Republic's central bank on Wednesday cut its key interest rate for a third straight time amid falling inflation and an effort to help the economy, the Associated Press reported. The cut by a half-percentage point brought the interest rate down to 5.75%. The move was expected by most analysts. The bank started to trim borrowing costs by a quarter-point on Dec. 21, which marked the first cut since June 22, 2022. It continued with a cut by a half-percentage point on Feb 8.

A group of Zambia's international bondholders has signed a non-disclosure agreement with the government to discuss a $3 billion debt restructuring proposal, three sources familiar with situation said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The government sent a formal debt rework proposal to the steering committee of the creditor group last week, two of the sources said. Entering into a non-disclosure agreement usually marks the start of formal restructuring talks.

Raiffeisen Bank International AG’s protracted efforts to exit Russia faced fresh doubts on Wednesday, sending shares of the lender lower and forcing it to postpone a bond sale, Bloomberg News reported. US authorities are pushing the Austrian bank to drop a plan that would have allowed it to repatriate as much as €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) stuck in Russia, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the discussions. Shares of the lender slumped as much as 16%, prompting it to delay the planned sale of debt securities.

Creditors of the two main property units in Rene Benko’s Signa conglomerate backed plans to sell off assets as part of a restructuring that’s expected to recoup about 30% of their money, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders, which include banks, insurers and sovereign wealth funds, backed the proposals for Signa Prime Selection, the flagship luxury unit, and its smaller sister Signa Development Selection at meetings in Vienna on Monday. Signa Prime owns famous properties such as the Selfridges department store in London and the KaDeWe in Berlin.

Troubled property developer China Evergrande Group says Beijing’s stock watchdog has fined it 4.2 billion yuan ($333.4 million) for allegedly falsifying its revenue, among other violations, as it conducts a deep clean of the troubled financial sector, the Associated Press reported. The company said in a release to mainland Chinese stock exchanges late Monday that its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) and banned from China’s markets for life.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai has admitted a corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against over a century-old textile maker ShriVallabh Pittie (SVP) group’s affiliate Shrivallabh Pittie Industries Ltd in an application filed by the State Bank of India, the Economic Times of India reported. The lender had approached the tribunal after the company defaulted on its dues of about Rs 90 crore. The tribunal has also appointed Mukesh Verma as resolution professional.