Headlines

China has for the first time issued a notice prohibiting domestic brokerages and their overseas units from taking on new mainland clients for offshore trading, according to an official document seen by Reuters and confirmed by four sources. New investments by existing mainland clients are also to be "strictly monitored" to prevent investors from bypassing China's foreign exchange controls, said the notice.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) will decide later this year if it should eliminate Imperial Pacific International (IPI) from its casino plans. It may not have to wait, though, as two new lawsuits in Hong Kong want the company to be deemed insolvent, Casino.org reported.

Finance ministers from the world’s most advanced economies condemned Hamas for its attack against Israel, as war in the Middle East added to the threats facing the global economy, Bloomberg News reported. “We unequivocally condemn the recent terror attacks by Hamas on the State of Israel and express our solidarity with the Israeli people,” the Group of Seven countries said in a statement on Thursday in Marrakech, Morocco.

Argentina's central bank raised the country's benchmark interest rate to 145% from 118% on Thursday, a source close to the matter told Reuters, as the South American country battles triple-digit annual inflation. The hike follows the rapid freefall of Argentina's peso, with the currency surpassing the psychological barrier of 1,000 pesos per U.S. dollar earlier this week with less than two weeks before a crucial presidential election.

Egypt expects to borrow at least $1.5 billion before the end of this year, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said, largely by looking to tap Asian capital markets as part of debt issuance guaranteed by development institutions, Bloomberg News reported. The plans include $500 million in what would be Egypt’s debut panda bonds and its second sale of Samurai debt worth the same amount, Maait told Bloomberg News in an interview in Marrakech, where he’s attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Chile’s finance minister played down the impact of one of the world’s worst currency routs on inflation, saying the short-term peso weakness is unlikely to divert the central bank’s plans to cut interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. The currency slump stems from global economic factors such as the appreciation of the dollar as the Federal Reserve turns more hawkish, meaning any pressure on domestic prices will be relatively small, Mario Marcel said in an interview from the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Morocco.

AccorInvest Group SA, one of the world’s largest hotel owners, has put a series of assets up for sale in Europe and Latin America to reduce its debt, Bloomberg News reported. The group, which has more than 750 hotels operated by Accor SA, is looking to raise about €2 billion ($2.1 billion) from sales including hotels under the Sofitel brand in Paris to repay creditors, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private information. It will also talk to lenders to amend the terms and extend the maturity of €4 billion of debt coming due in 2025.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge granted SAS AB’s request to speed the process of paying $3 million to advisers of the Scandinavian airline’s investor group, keeping its restructuring on track over opposition from creditor Apollo Global Management Inc., Bloomberg News reported. Judge Michael E. Wiles set an Oct. 12 hearing on a motion to expedite reimbursement to advisers to the group led by Air France-KLM and Castlelake LP, who are set to take control of SAS as it exits from chapter 11 protection.

Metro Bank Holdings Plc said it has secured sufficient consent from its bondholders to extend its senior debt and restructure its junior notes as part of a rescue deal agreed over the weekend, Bloomberg News reported. The UK challenger bank has received support from holders of over 75% in value of both its senior and junior notes, potentially making the deal binding for all creditors, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Deutsche Bank AG squared off against the U.S. parent company of Lehman Brothers in a London court this week, hoping to squeeze more money from obscure notes issued by the long-dead bank’s U.K. arm, Bloomberg News reported. The German lender argued that it should be paid money recovered from the U.K. unit ahead of the company’s U.S. parent. Deutsche Bank is leading the case as a holder of a certain type of junior security issued from Lehman’s European unit.