Headlines

While private equity funds were prepared to keep injecting capital during the pandemic, believing that profits would stabilize again once normal operations resumed, now they are looking more selectively at the long-term viability of the companies they own, Bloomberg News reported. “Sponsors have to pick which businesses to keep supporting,” said David Morris, a senior managing director and head of the UK restructuring practice at FTI Consulting. “Part of that will depend on how far away they think they are from value and the speed at which they could go back to value.

Capital buffers for banks in the European Union have reached historic highs, with rises in interest rates boosting profitability to support record payouts to shareholders, the bloc's banking watchdog said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Since taxpayers bailed out lenders in the 2007-09 global financial crisis, tougher rules have forced banks to build up their capital buffers, with further rises in the pipeline.

Three Arrows Capital co-founder Su Zhu for the first time faced questioning in a Singapore court about the crypto fund’s collapse, giving liquidators their best chance yet to gather information as they seek to recoup billions of dollars for creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The two-day court hearing this week required Zhu to respond to lawyers for the liquidator, Teneo, people familiar with the matter said. The lawyers sought details including how the fund failed and the whereabouts of assets, the people said, asking not to be named as the proceedings were private.

New bank lending in China jumped less than expected in November, even as the central bank keeps policy accommodative to support a feeble recovery in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is expected to deliver more modest policy easing in the coming weeks, following a pledge this week by top leaders to step up policy adjustments to support the economic recovery in 2024, analysts said.

Canada’s small business minister is resisting a push to give companies more time to repay pandemic-era loans from the government, despite warnings from a lobby group that 250,000 firms are at risk if she doesn’t, Bloomberg News reported. Rechie Valdez, who was sworn into the cabinet post in July, said the government has been flexible by pushing back the deadline multiple times already and offering billions in support to small business. “I don’t think we’re giving small businesses enough credit. They’re unbelievably resilient,” she said in an interview in her Ottawa office.

Britain's payments regulator on Wednesday provisionally proposed a cap on cross-border interchange fees on retailers and other businesses charged by Mastercard (MA.N) and Visa (V.N) on transactions made between the UK and European single market, Reuters reported. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said a cap would protect businesses from overpaying, after it published interim findings of a market review on interchange fees charged since Brexit, when the bloc's longstanding cap ceased to apply in Britain.

Australian home prices just hit a high in what was already one of the world’s most expensive real-estate markets. Now, Australian officials say they have a plan that will help to make housing more affordable: curtailing migration, the Wall Street Journal reported. A new policy, unveiled this week, will result in a 14% reduction in migrants over the next four years than would otherwise be expected, according to government forecasts.

The City of London, Britain’s historic financial district, is awash with construction, the intensity of which is not expected to let up soon, the New York Times reported. The City of London Corporation, the district’s governing body, has approved 10 new office towers, including one that will exceed the height of all others in the area, known locally as the Square Mile. Altogether, more than five million square feet of office space is under construction, with another five million square feet in the pipeline.

Country Garden Holdings Co., the Chinese builder whose liquidity crunch shook the nation’s financial markets, is likely to avoid its first default on yuan bonds after most holders of a local note agreed not to demand repayment this week, Bloomberg News reported. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange met last week with some holders of the 800 million yuan ($111.5 million) security to seek such an outcome. The bond has a put option Dec. 13 that allows investors to demand repayment before maturity next year.

China’s top leaders including President Xi Jinping vowed to make industrial policy their top economic priority for next year, a message likely to disappoint investors hoping for an emphasis on stimulus, Bloomberg News reported. A readout of the annual economic work conference stressed the use of “technological innovation to lead the construction of a modern industrial system.” It also called to “vigorously” develop the digital economy and the artificial intelligence sector.