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Lessors are set to terminate hundreds of aircraft leases with Russian airlines following Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine that require the contracts be cancelled, Reuters reported. AerCap Holdings, the world's biggest leasing company, said on Monday that it would cease leasing activity with Russian airlines, while BOC Aviation said that most of its leases in Russia would now have to be terminated by March 28. Russia warned the West it would retaliate against sanctions targeting its aviation industry.

After posting a loss for the fourth quarter, Credito Real said it was seeking to avoid a messy legal battle with creditors and would work to keep the company running following a default earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported. The lender that focuses on payroll loans posted a loss of 359.4 million pesos ($17.7 million) in the fourth quarter as cash levels dwindled to around $30 million. Credito Real failed to pay a 170 million Swiss franc ($184 million) bond due Feb. 9. After huddling with more than 100 representatives from creditors on Feb.

Future Retail Ltd, India's second-largest retailer, suspended most of its online and offline operations as stores remained shut on Sunday, after rival Reliance bid to take over its flagship supermarkets for missed lease payments, Reuters reported. Reliance Industries Ltd will rebrand the Future stores after the company failed to make payments for them to Reliance, sources told Reuters on Saturday, closing most outlets of the popular Big Bazaar chain.

A widely-anticipated push by China’s government to boost construction in order to stabilize growth in the world’s second-largest economy has yet to materialize, a blow to hopes that Chinese stimulus would lift global growth early on this year, Bloomberg News reported. The Communist Party has made its stimulus goals clear in recent months, pledging to “front-load” pro-growth policies in 2022, pushing early sales of bonds to fund investment and easing curbs on financing for the property sector.

With Covid shutting off tourism from much of the West, Russia and Ukraine had become an increasingly important source of foreign currency for Sri Lanka. The conflict threatens to turn off that tap as key bond repayments come due, Bloomberg News reported. Almost a quarter of all tourist arrivals into Sri Lanka this year were from Russia and Ukraine -- rising to 30% if you include Poland and Belarus, official data show. Russia, which was the third-biggest buyer of Sri Lankan tea over the past two years, rose to second place in January.

Canada's Ontario province on Monday will introduce legislation to establish a minimum wage and other rights for gig economy workers such as drivers for ride-hailing companies, Premier Doug Ford said, Reuters reported. The legislation, which Ford called a first for a Canadian province, includes clarity around hours and pay calculations. It also includes protection against dismissal from a digital platform without proper notice or explanation, and ensure tips that workers earn remain with them, Ford told reporters.

The impact of a euro-zone interest-rate hike would be quickly felt by Portuguese companies and families, according to the country’s central bank governor, Bloomberg News reported. “The structure of credit in Portugal is dominated by variable interest rates, so transmission of interest rates to funding costs, both for households and firms, will be very fast,” Mario Centeno, a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said in an interview in Lisbon on Monday. “So we need to be prepared for that.” Centeno also said that Portugal has a “very low” exposure to Russia.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday that more than $1 billion will be needed for aid operations in Ukraine over the next three months as hundreds of thousands of people are on the move after Russia invaded its neighbor, Reuters reported. "We're going to need to use cash for the delivery of assistance, and we're going to need to use that cash safely. We're looking obviously at the impact of sanctions on our operations," he told reporters. Read more.

Russia's central bank announced a slew of measures on Sunday to support domestic markets, as it scrambled to manage the fallout of harsh Western sanctions over the weekend amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported. The central bank said it would resume buying gold on the domestic market, launch a repurchase auction with no limits and ease restrictions on banks' open foreign currency positions. It also increased the range of securities that can be used as collateral to get loans and ordered market players to reject foreign clients' bids to sell Russian securities.