Headlines

Heavily indebted property firm China Evergrande Group said on Monday that it has moved out of its headquarters in Shenzhen to another property in the city to cut costs and was still registered in the southern Chinese city, Reuters reported. The company issued its statement after Chinese media outlet The Paper reported that Evergrande had moved its headquarters from Shenzhen to nearby Guangzhou. Evergrande said it has moved out of Shenzhen's Excellence Centre, which is owned by another company, to a building that Evergrande owns in the city but gave no further details on the new set-up.

Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) on Monday maintained their forecasts for growth in expenses this year despite expectations that inflation will remain elevated, Reuters reported. CIBC, Canada's No. 5 bank, said last month it expects mid-single-digit expense growth in fiscal 2022, after reporting a 13% increase in the fourth quarter, the highest in the industry.

Mexico’s government said it had slashed Petroleos Mexicanos’ debt burden by $3.2 billion through a refinancing operation, Bloomberg News reported. The government swapped debt that was expiring soon for a new bond with a maturity of 10 years, while also refinancing some medium maturity debt that was cheap, according to a statement from the Finance Ministry. The operation will reduce the “financial pressure” on Pemex by $10.5 billion between 2024 and 2030, the ministry said, adding that the refinancing wouldn’t reduce the fiscal budget.

A consortium led by South Korean electric carmaker Edison Motors Co has agreed to acquire debt-ridden SsangYong Motor Co Ltd for 305 billion won ($254.65 million), SsangYong Motor said on Monday, Reuters reported. SsangYong is burdened with high debt and its vehicle sales last year fell to 84,496, down about 21% from a year earlier, a regulatory filing from the automaker showed. The automaker reported a January-September 2021 operating loss of 238 billion won from revenue of 1.8 trillion won.

Prominent cabinet minister Michael Gove promised tax cuts down the line as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under pressure from senior Tories to reduce the burden on ordinary Britons, Bloomberg News reported. Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Brexit chief David Frost have criticized Johnson’s approach to tax in recent days, with the former calling for the premier to scrap an upcoming increase in payroll taxes to fund the National Health Service. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Frost said Johnson should return to a low-tax agenda.

Europe’s unemployment rate has fallen below its pre-pandemic level, but a surge in wages this year doesn’t seem likely even though higher inflation has weakened workers’ spending power, according to economists and officials, the Wall Street Journal reported. At 7.3%, the eurozone’s unemployment rate was below pre-pandemic levels in October, having hit a pandemic high of 8.6% in September 2020.

Portugal will allow students to return to school from this week and nightclubs to reopen on Jan. 14 despite a record surge in COVID-19 cases, with hospital admissions still well below levels seen earlier in the pandemic, Reuters reported. "It is evident that the Omicron variant is less severe ... vaccination has been effective against it," Prime Minister Antonio Costa told a news conference, referring to the fast-spreading variant that emerged in late 2021.

Shimao Group Holdings Ltd., a bellwether for financial contagion in China’s embattled property industry, suffered its biggest-ever bond rout on Thursday after a creditor said one of the developer’s units defaulted on a local loan, Bloomberg News reported. The Shimao unit failed to pay 645 million yuan ($101 million) of a total 792 million yuan due by Dec. 25, according to a notice sent to investors by China Credit Trust Co. The trust firm had demanded early repayment by Dec. 25 after the developer failed to meet installment requirements, according to the notice.

China called on banks to boost real estate lending in the first quarter and eased a key debt restriction for developers, a sign that authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about the industry’s liquidity crisis, Bloomberg News reported. In previously unreported window guidance issued last month, regulators told banks to step up lending to developers after at least two quarters of consecutive declines, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

The impact of the pandemic on the productive fabric has caused that in 2021 a total of 5,496 companies in Spain have been doomed to bankruptcy, despite the fact that the government approved the granting of aid for companies affected by the pandemic and has kept the obligation for companies to present a tender when reaching a situation of insolvency and not being able to cope with debts, CVBJ.biz reported.