Headlines

UK business secretary Greg Clark has travelled to India and China over the past two weeks to meet companies viewed as potential bidders for British Steel, as efforts intensify to rescue the ailing business and save thousands of jobs, the Financial Times reported. In the past few days, the cabinet minister met JSW, one of India’s largest steel manufacturers, according to two people briefed on the matter, and other businesses. This followed a trip last week to China, whose Baowu has been linked with a move for British Steel.

A key gauge of the health of Germany’s manufacturing industry sank by far more than expected in May, adding to concerns about the health of the global economy ahead of the release of key US economic data. A steep drop-off in foreign demand is hitting factories across the eurozone and raising expectations that the European Central Bank will revive its crisis-era stimulus, the Financial Times reported. Manufacturing orders in Germany dropped 2.2 per cent month-on-month in May, and were down 8.6 per cent from the same month in 2018.

After a year of relentless currency crisis, a credit freeze and slide into recession, some global investors are betting Turkey has weathered the worst of its biggest financial and economic shock since its 2001 banking collapse - by accident or design, Reuters reported. While Turkey faces numerous unresolved political and economic challenges, the more extreme fears of a sovereign funding squeeze that threatened national bankruptcy and international bailout, or even a return to its dark past of hyperinflation, appear to have eased.

India will inject another 700 billion rupees ($10.2 billion) into state banks, giving them a bigger cushion to absorb loan losses and bolster credit growth at a time when the country’s shadow banks are in retreat, Bloomberg News reported. The new infusion will “boost capital so that credit can be further improved,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday, while presenting the federal budget for the year to March 2020. New measures will be introduced to improve governance at the state lenders, she added, without giving details.

The Brexit Coalition, a newly-formed body of 29 diverse pro-Brexit campaigning organisations, including the Alliance of British Entrepreneurs, Artists for Brexit and Farmers for Britain, said the UK would still have to contribute if a future bail-out sparked financial meltdown in the eurozone, the Daily Express reported.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has directed the Mumbai bench of the NCLT to pass an order over the insolvency plea against 15 Videocon group companies within next three weeks, Business Standard reported. The NCLAT said that taking into consideration the nature of the matter, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai should pass an order within three weeks over the insolvency plea filed by banks. The NCLAT order came over the plea filed by the lenders, led by SBI and the Resolution Professional of the company.

Ratings agency DBRS believes there is a low risk that the borrowers of the €290 million worth of mortgages being sold by lender Finance Ireland will default, The Irish Times reported. Finance Ireland said this week that it intends offering almost 1,400 home loans on which the borrowers owe €290 million for sale in bonds known as residential-mortgage-backed securities. DBRS Ratings, which assesses businesses’ ability to pay their debts, has given the Finance Ireland bonds ratings of between BB and AAA, meaning that it believes there is a low risk of the borrowers defaulting.

South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility will name an acting chief executive officer when incumbent Phakamani Hadebe steps down at the end of the month, according to a person familiar with the decision, Bloomberg News reported. The appointment will be made as the government readies a rescue plan for Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which is saddled with more than $30 billion in debt and isn’t selling enough power to cover its costs.

Sales of riskier rupee corporate bonds have all but dried up in recent months, in another negative for India’s slowing economy as companies struggle to raise cash, Bloomberg News reported. Issuance of notes graded A+ and lower plunged 84% last quarter from a year earlier to 22.6 billion rupees ($329 million), the least in five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Borrowing costs have also jumped for issuers with lower debt scores, as a crisis in India’s shadow banking sector saps investor demand for riskier securities.

Mining company Power Resources Group (PRG) said on Friday it was buying Metalysis, a British high-tech specialist which was backed by asset manager Neil Woodford, out of administration, Reuters reported. Metalysis, which manufactures 3D printing powder, fell into administration in June, around the same time Woodford’s equity income fund, was frozen. His fund had a 1.6 million pound stake in Metalysis, which has received a total of 92 million pounds ($115 million) through numerous funding rounds, most recently in 2018.