Headlines

Singapore Airlines Ltd. became the first carrier to tap the debt market for dollars in 2022, raising funds at a discount to peers thanks to its government backing, Bloomberg News reported. The flag carrier sold $600 million of seven-year bonds to yield 3.493%. That’s nearly a percentage point lower than the average yield at issuance for global airline notes sold in 2021, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. In 2021 Air Canada borrowed for five years at 3.875% while United Airlines Holdings Inc. had a 4.625% yield at issue for 8 years, the data show.

Troubled cruise operator Genting Hong Kong Ltd. plunged by a record Thursday after shares resumed trading, following warnings from the company in recent days of more defaults due to the insolvency of its German shipbuilding subsidiary, Bloomberg News reported. Part of Malaysian tycoon Lim Kok Thay’s sprawling casino-to-hospitality Genting empire, the Hong Kong cruise firm’s shares slid 56% in the city. They had been suspended since last week.

East Yorkshire contractor PDR Construction, which Construction News revealed on Tuesday had ceased work on its sites across the country, has appointed administrators. The £83m-turnover main contractor had made all its staff redundant ahead of the administration, a statement from Leonard Curtis Business Rescue & Recovery has revealed. The statement blamed the impact of the pandemic on contracts, as well as a “significant” recent failed adjudication, which the administrator has not given details of.

Almost a quarter of small businesses in nine countries around the world plan to accept digital currencies as a form of payment in 2022, while 13% of consumers in those countries expect retail stores to begin offering crypto payments this year and beyond, according to a survey by Visa Inc. (V.N), Reuters reported. The survey of 2,250 small business owners across nine countries including the United States, Brazil, Singapore and Canada suggests cryptocurrencies may be starting to go mainstream as a means of payment.

The London interbank offered rate (LIBOR), a number that spent decades as a central force of international finance and was used in setting interest rates on everything from mortgages to student loans, has died after a long battle with regulators. It was 52. LIBOR, the interest-rate benchmark once underpinned more than $300 trillion in financial contracts but was undone after a yearslong market-rigging scandal came to light in 2008, the New York Times reported.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday he would welcome Mexican investors bidding in the sale of U.S. bank Citigroup's consumer banking operations in Mexico, making a pitch for the assets to become Mexican again, Reuters reported. "We can turn it into something very good, if, without authoritarian measures, it's possible to Mexicanize this bank," Lopez Obrador said in a video address from his office, where he is recovering from a COVID-19 infection. Lopez Obrador welcomed the fact Mexican tycoon Ricardo Salinas had shown interest in the assets.

COVID-19 vaccine requirements for foreign truckers at the U.S.-Canada border still could cause supply-chain disruptions if both countries do not decide to allow exemptions, the head of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Late on Wednesday, Canada dropped a vaccine mandate for Canadian truckers returning home from the United States that was supposed to kick in on Saturday, but unvaccinated non-Canadians will still be turned back at the border.

According to Statistics Netherlands, 1,536 companies were declared bankrupt in 2021, the NL Times reported. That number was only slightly lower in 1990 at 1,527. The stats office has been keeping track of this data since 1981. The number of bankruptcies fell in almost all sectors of industry. Most bankruptcies happened in trade, but that is also the sector with the most companies. The number of bankruptcies in the catering industry more than halved last year compared to a year earlier.

A unit of offshore driller Seadrill Ltd yesterday filed a fast-tracked reorganization plan in Houston bankruptcy court, where it expects to seek approval of the proposal today, Reuters reported. The case comes just a few months after its parent entity emerged from its own bankruptcy proceeding. That reorganization plan is scheduled to go into effect early this year. Seadrill New Finance Ltd’s chapter 11 case is intended to be the “final component” of the entire Seadrill Group’s restructuring efforts, according to a declaration from financial controller Tyson de Souza.

The Turkish lira has become so volatile that Turks have ditched the local currency for assets with an even riskier reputation: cryptocurrencies, the Wall Street Journal reported. While the lira unraveled against the dollar in the last quarter of 2021, cryptocurrency trading volumes using the lira leapt to an average $1.8 billion a day across three exchanges, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.