Headlines

A China Evergrande Group unit in mainland China has become the target of a liquidation petition, as creditors step up efforts to recover assets from the fallen property giant, Bloomberg News reported. The petition was filed against Guangzhou Kailong Real Estate by Guangdong Vanward New Electric Co. to a court in southern Guangzhou city, according to a Shenzhen stock exchange filing late Wednesday. Fully owned by Evergrande, Kailong has a stake of around 60% in Hengda Real Estate, which is the developer’s main property operation onshore, an exchange filing shows.

Chinese regulators have asked some money management firms to report the duration of any new bond fund products, in the latest effort to curb risks in the market, Bloomberg News reported. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has also significantly slowed down the approval process for new bond funds and asked some fund companies to document their existing bond fund durations. A rally in Chinese government bonds is raising concerns from regulators that banks and investment funds are exposing themselves to excessive risk if the market turns.

A U.S. judge refused to block a debt payment designed to free Byju’s from an insolvency case in India, telling American lenders to take their complaints about the transaction to a court in the home country of the educational tech firm, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon rejected a lender request to block Riju Ravindran, brother of Byju’s founder, from paying more than $19 million to India’s governing board for cricket. A deal to clear the debt enabled Byju’s to win dismissal of an insolvency case in front of a judicial tribunal in India.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) the regulator for bankruptcy proceedings in the country has issued 15 point guidelines to the committee of creditors (COC) while deciding insolvency cases with an aim to stem value erosion by curbing procedural delays and increase co-ordination among members, the Economic Times of India reported. The guidelines asks creditors to resolve any inter-se disputes between the members, particularly in relation to claims, preferably, through dialogue, or other non-adversarial means and avoid litigation.

India’s central bank left its policy rate unchanged, in an attempt to rein in relatively high inflation driven partly by elevated food prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. Reserve Bank of India Gov. Shaktikanta Das said Thursday that the monetary-policy committee decided to maintain its policy repo rate at 6.50%. He said that the committee will also remain focused on the withdrawal of accommodation.

With an offer of $5 million, U.K.-based outdoor and sports gear retailer Mountain Warehouse has emerged as the stalking horse bidder for Eastern Mountain Sports’ intellectual property. The bankruptcy auction ends by Aug. 30, when the deal is scheduled to close, per court documents, RetailDive.com reported. After that date, EMS will close any inventoried stores until the deal is complete, and it would be up to Mountain Warehouse to reopen them. If EMS accepts a higher bid, Mountain Warehouse is entitled to a $150,000 break-up fee, according to court filings.

South Korea announced a series of steps intended to increase housing supplies as it tries to temper a rebounding property market that has frustrated potential buyers and made the central bank cautious about a policy pivot, Bloomberg News reported. The government of President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to ease restrictions on redevelopment projects, help speed up the construction of apartments and provide loan guarantees to developers, according to a Finance Ministry statement that contained a slew of measures.

Chile’s consumer prices rose more than forecast in July, supporting the central bank’s decision to hold its interest steady last week, interrupting a year of aggressive monetary easing amid risks including higher energy costs, Bloomberg News reported. Prices increased 0.7% from June, more than the 0.6% median estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The annual inflation rate ticked up to 4.6% in the chained series, the National Statistics Institute reported on Thursday.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s governor, Michele Bullock, warned again on Thursday that the central bank may still need to raise interest rates further as inflation risks continue to lurk more than two years after policy action started to cool it down, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bullock told a community meeting in her hometown of Armidale, New South Wales, that inflation is lower than where it was a year ago, but remains “too high.” “The board remains vigilant with respect to upside risks on inflation and will not hesitate to raise rates if it needs to.

Bank of Canada officials worried about the risk of a yearslong slump in consumer spending amid signs of labor-market weakness, according to a summary of their deliberations leading up to a July rate cut, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Canada delivered a second straight quarter-point cut in July, taking its policy rate to 4.5%, and signaled more reductions were in the offing given that economic slack, or spare capacity, has increased. Gov.