Headlines

Mexican carrier Aeromexico said yesterday that its creditors have overwhelmingly approved the company's restructuring plan as part of its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Aeromexico said in a statement that the voting ended on 7 Jan. and 86% of the creditors who voted backed the plan. "The conclusion of the voting process and the strong support from the company's creditors represents a key milestone in Aeromexico's restructuring process," the company said. It also puts Aeromexico in a strong position to "obtain Court approval for the plan", the company added.

Germany is telling its banks to rebuild capital buffers that they were allowed to deplete at the onset of the pandemic, joining other European countries in tightening regulations again as lenders take more risk, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s banks have to set aside 22 billion euros ($25 billion) of capital buffers by February next year, the country’s financial authorities said on Wednesday. The vast majority have enough capital on hand to meet the regulatory demands without raising fresh funds, BaFin President Mark Branson told reporters.

Legal technology startup LegalPay has partnered with Mumbai-based non-banking finance firm Jumbo Finance Ltd to give interim finance to the companies undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), the Economic Times of India reported. New Delhi-based LegalPay, which also works as an alternative-investments platform specializing in legal financing, is also in talks with some more such NBFCs to fund companies under CIRP. mid-market companies, including micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), undergoing insolvencies requiring up to Rs 5 crore.

Ghana’s inflation rate jumped to the highest level in almost five years in December, underscoring the dilemma the central bank faces in trying to balance its efforts to curb price growth and boost the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Annual inflation accelerated to 12.6% from 12.2% in November, Government Statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told reporters Wednesday in Accra, the capital. That’s the highest rate since April 2017, exceeding the finance ministry’s forecast of 8% and topping the median estimate of 12.5% projected by six economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday announced a second round of sales tax cuts as part of the right-wing government’s efforts to fight inflation after it reached a 21-year high last month, the Associated Press reported. Morawiecki blamed surging consumer prices on high energy costs, saying they are the result of Russian gas prices and the European Union’s policy on greenhouse gas emissions.

It was once hailed as the future of Chinese banking, a privately run lender that would mint money by outmaneuvering its state-owned rivals, Bloomberg News reported. An ill-fated push into property lending has instead turned China Minsheng Banking Corp. into one of the biggest casualties of the real estate debt crisis that’s roiling Asia’s largest economy. Battered by mounting losses on loans to developers including China Evergrande Group, Minsheng’s stock tumbled 31% in the 12 months through last week -- the worst performance in the 155-member Bloomberg World Banks Index.

Vodafone Idea Ltd. said that India’s government doesn’t want to actively run the unprofitable phone operator after its board approved a rescue plan that made the state its biggest shareholder with a 36% stake in the company, Bloomberg News reported. “They do not have to desire to take over the operations of the company,” Ravinder Takkar, managing director and chief executive officer of Vodafone Idea, told reporters on Wednesday.

The Philippines’ central bank is unlikely to increase policy rates in the first half of this year as it waits for the economic recovery to become entrenched and unemployment to fall, according to central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno, Bloomberg News reported. “After the performance in the first two quarters of the year, that’s when we seriously look at whether we will make some adjustments,” Diokno said in an interview Tuesday. “We want to make sure that the economy is recovering well.” Like central bankers globally, Southeast Asian policy makers are juggling the prospects of a faster U.S.

Annual inflation in Brazil ended 2021 at a six-year high of 10.06%, government data showed on Tuesday, well above the upper limit of the central bank's year-end target range due to surging fuel and energy prices, Reuters reported. Despite slowing from the 12 months through November, when it reached 10.74%, the rise in the benchmark IPCA consumer price index was the most for a calendar year since 2015, said IBGE, while slightly exceeding the 9.97% median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.

Vodafone Idea said on Tuesday it is giving the Indian government a 35.8% stake in the company after its board approved conversion of dues and spectrum auction installments into equity to save the third-largest telecom operator in the country from collapsing, TechCrunch reported. The operator, a joint venture between the British telecoms group Vodafone and local billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s conglomerate, has been attempting to avoid a collapse for several years after the arrival of Reliance Jio, which undercut the competitors with cheap data and free calls offering.