Headlines

December is poised to be a record month for Chinese offshore corporate defaults after missed payments by indebted companies including China Evergrande Group and Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. Chinese firms have defaulted on a record $3.8 billion in offshore bonds so far this month, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The previous monthly high was in January when Chinese borrowers failed to repay $2.7 billion of such notes.

Croatian holding company Djuro Djakovic Grupa said that the commercial court in Osijek launched bankruptcy proceedings against its unit Djuro Djakovic Industrijska Rjesenja on December 20, SeeNews.com reported. The court is scheduled to hold a hearing of the debtors' claims on March 29 next year, Djuro Djakovic Grupa said in a filing to the Zagreb bourse published after the end of the trading day on Monday. Djuro Djakovic Industrijska Rjesenja filed for bankruptcy in September.

U.K. debt costs are rising at the fastest pace since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, a potential headache for Chancellor Rishi Sunak as he faces pressure to spend more to help businesses weather the impact of the omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported. Figures published Tuesday showed interest payments made by the Treasury surged 54% between April and November, or by 15 billion pounds ($20 billion) to 42.9 billion pounds. That’s the biggest jump for the period since 2010.

Canada's second most populous province of Quebec ordered bars, gyms and casinos shut on Monday and directed people to work only from home to fight the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Reuters reported. Health minister Christian Dube said the province had a record 4,500 new cases of the coronavirus a day and predicted worse was yet to come. He urged Quebecers to cut down their personal contacts with the approach of Christmas and New Year's Day. The new measures were due to take effect at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Monday. "The situation is critical ...

China is ramping up support of the embattled real estate sector as growing stress in the industry threatens to deepen an economic slowdown, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities are encouraging banks to fund acquisitions of projects of distressed developers and pushing financially healthy property firms to make such purchases, the central bank-backed Financial News reported Monday. China is also providing credit support to an economy showing strain from the property slump, with domestic banks on Monday lowering borrowing costs for the first time in 20 months.

Mexico’s central bank isn’t committed to a pace of half-point increases to its benchmark interest rate after delivering a hike of that magnitude in December, according to outgoing Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon, Bloomberg News reported. The bank announced a bigger-than-expected increaseto borrowing costs last week, following four straight quarter-point hikes, in an effort to combat skyrocketing inflation. Diaz de Leon, who leaves office at year-end, said policy makers are navigating “uncharted territory” and shouldn’t constrain themselves before future decisions.

Kyrgyzstan is pushing for an out-of-court settlement with Canada's Centerra Gold to resolve a dispute in which the state seized the company's Kumtor mine and both sides launched legal challenges, Reuters reported. Centerra in May kicked off arbitration against the Kyrgyzstan government, after it took over the country's biggest mine for allegedly posing danger to human lives or the environment.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., which in 2015 became one of the first Chinese developers to default abroad, said it had failed to make several payments on dollar bonds as planned, and is talking to creditors about a wide-ranging restructuring plan, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move sets the stage for parallel debt workouts by two of the mainland real-estate sector’s biggest offshore borrowers, Shenzhen-based Kaisa and China Evergrande Group. Kaisa said Monday it had $11.8 billion of dollar bonds outstanding, while the tally for Evergrande is nearly $20 billion.

An Aeromexico creditor on Monday objected to the Mexican airline's restructuring plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, saying the proposal would unfairly benefit majority shareholder Delta Air Lines Inc., Reuters reported. Invictus Global Management said in a public letter to Delta's board of directors that it opposed the plan put forward by Aeromexico. Aeromexico last week said that an unnamed third party would make a tender offer valuing its outstanding shares at a fraction of their previous market price as part of its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy.

Philippine Airlines Inc. won court approval for its reorganisation plan, paving the way for the carrier to exit bankruptcy, cut $2 billion in debt and revive its fortunes after a slump in international travel due to the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan said on Friday that she would approve the chapter 11 plan after unsecured creditors voted to back the proposal. The reorganization didn’t face any major opposition from debt holders. "This case is a model for what can be accomplished in chapter 11,” Chapman said.