Headlines

Punjab & Sind Bank, the lead lender of Supertech Township projects, has rejected a settlement proposal. The National Company Law Appelate Tribunal (NCLAT) will now take a final decision on the insolvency of the debt-ridden firm, the Times of India reported. The counsel representing Ram Kishore Arora, the suspended director of the firm, informed the NCLAT about the rejection of the settlement proposal on Thursday.

Defaulted property developer Sunac China Holdings said that it can’t rule out a second offshore debt restructuring as a prolonged property crisis dims its outlook and it faces another court petition to wind up operations, Bloomberg News reported. The company “doesn’t exclude seeking a more comprehensive holistic offshore debt solution”, given that current market conditions are “significantly below” expectations when it completed its first overhaul in 2023.

China Evergrande said on Monday that a court in Hong Kong had ordered one of its key offshore units to be wound up, the latest in a slew of legal victories for the embattled developer's liquidators, Reuters reported. The liquidators had filed a winding-up petition against company subsidiary CEG Holdings BVI in September, in a bid to recover funds from the debt-laden property company that defaulted in 2021 and triggered China's real estate market crisis.

China’s top securities regulator said it will work on building a mechanism to stabilize the market, vowing to anchor market expectations in 2025 after a disappointing start to the new year, Bloomberg News reported. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said stability is top of its agenda in 2025 as it pledged to make every effort to induce and maintain the market’s stabilizing and positive momentum, according to a statement following its work meeting on its priorities for the year.

In a striking sign of the Chinese economy’s stagnation, the central bank said on Friday that it had temporarily stopped buying government bonds, the New York Times reported. The central bank’s unexpected action is aimed at braking a recent shift by investors toward purchasing bonds while shunning riskier assets like stocks and real estate. That shift has driven China’s long-term interest rates to a record low. The decision to stop buying government bonds is especially unusual because interest rates have been rising lately in most of the world, in response to inflation fears.

Chinese companies were among the main buyers at the bankruptcy auction for BelGaN's high-tech machinery, Belgium’s last industrial chip manufacturer. In total, it raised over €23 million on Friday, according to its creditors, the Brussels Times reported. The company, based in Oudenaarde, East Flanders, went out of business three months ago, leaving over 400 employees jobless. The company specialised in the production of innovative gallium nitride semiconductors. https://www.brusselstimes.com/1388179/china-buys-assets-of-belgiums-bankrupt-semiconductor-maker

Berlin has sounded out potential buyers for Uniper in a deal that could see the government selling its entire holding in the $18.8 billion energy utility, Reuters reported. Germany's government, which owns 99.12% of the company after nationalising it in 2022 during Europe's energy crisis, is pursuing a partial stake sale, or re-IPO, of around 25% as a preferred option, but is also weighing exiting its holding in one go. Parties that have been approached about a full sale include New York-headquartered Brookfield.

The European Central Bank will continue to lower its key interest rate, but must do so at a pace that ensures inflation continues to cool, Chief Economist Philip Lane said, the Wall Street Journal reported. The eurozone’s central bank lowered its key rate four times between June and the end of 2024, and by a percentage point in total. Investors expect it to continue to lower borrowing costs this year.

Britain will go its own way on artificial intelligence regulation, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday, Reuters reported. "I know there are different approaches (to AI regulation) around the world but we are now in control of our regulatory regime so we will go our own way on this," Starmer said. "We will test and understand AI before we regulate it to make sure that when we do it, it's proportionate and grounded." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uks-starmer-says-britain-own-120425912.html

The administrator of Rene Benko’s bankrupt luxury property unit is asking former supervisory board members to acknowledge their role in causing at least €1 billion ($1.03 billion) of alleged damages by failing to practice proper oversight, Bloomberg News reported. Law firm Abel Rechtsanwälte GmbH claims board members of Signa Prime Selection AG, including former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, had ignored that the group was materially insolvent by March 2022 — if not earlier, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg.