Headlines

Truckers blockading a major refinery in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais disbanded on Friday, allowing fuel supplies to normalize in the nation's second most populous state, Reuters reported. The protesters, principally truckers who deliver fuel, had been demanding a decrease in taxes on diesel. Since Thursday, they had blocked roads near the REGAP refinery near state capital Belo Horizonte, an action that spooked industry leaders and motorists and caused some gas stations in Minas Gerais to run low on fuel.

Barclays Plc is leading a round of talks with investors to raise the equivalent of 500 million pounds ($691 million) of debt for U.K. supermarket chain Asda after a deal to purchase its forecourt gas pumps business fell through, Bloomberg News reported. The bank is seeking to raise senior secured debt for Asda which could be a mix of bonds and loans. The proceeds, along with 262 million pounds on Asda’s balance sheet, will go to repay a 750 million-pound bridge loan.

Moody’s Investors Service cut Ethiopia’s sovereign credit rating for a second time since May, citing a delay in the nation’s planned debt restructuring and an escalating civil war, Bloomberg News reported. The company lowered the rating one level to Caa2, it said in a statement on Wednesday. Moody’s in March placed the country on review for downgrade, before cutting the rating two months later. The outlook is negative. The yield on Ethiopia $1 billion of Eurobonds climbed five basis points to a record 13.83%.

The Turkish lira weakened 1.6% to a record low against the dollar in early Asian trade after President Tayyip Erdogan said he had ordered the expulsion of the ambassadors of the United States and nine other Western countries, Reuters reported. The currency had already hit record lows last week after the Turkish central bank (CBRT) cut its policy rate by 200 basis points, despite rising inflation, in a shock move derided as reckless by economists and opposition lawmakers. The lira hit an all-time low of 9.75 by 1840 GMT on Sunday, weakening from Friday's close of 9.5950.

France’s 2022 budget deficit will be wider than forecast only a month ago after President Emmanuel Macron’s government announced plans to contain energy prices, hand out checks to more than half the population, and make high-risk investments in future industrial sectors, Bloomberg News reported. With just six months to go until elections, Prime Minister Jean Castex said Thursday that around 38 million people earning less than 2,000 euros ($2,330) a month will receive 100 euros in “inflation compensation” to shield them against a surging fuel costs.

Italy has urged the European Union to start work immediately on a plan to create a joint storage system for strategic gas reserves, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Friday, Reuters reported. Speaking to reporters after an EU summit, Draghi said Brussels needed to draw up an inventory of gas reserves that are available today across the bloc. "On energy, Italy underlined the need to intervene immediately at a European level," Draghi said. European gas prices have soared in recent weeks amid tight supply and surging CO2 prices as economies gradually emerge from the health pandemic.

China Huarong Asset Management Co.’s shareholders approved a plan to sell assets and raise capital at its long-delayed annual general meeting, two months after the financial giant unveiled a state-led rescue package that ended speculation over its fate, Bloomberg News reported. Shareholders passed resolutions to extend the period in which it can issue the remaining 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) of its capital bond quota and grant the board a mandate to issue up to 20% of its outstanding shares, Huarong said in a filing Thursday after the meeting at its Beijing headquarters.

China Evergrande Group has secured more time to pay a defaulted bond, financial provider REDD reported on Thursday, offering rare respite to the developer even as a debt crisis in the broader property sector deepened with more defaults, Reuters reported. News of the three month-plus extension came a day after Evergrande scrapped a deal to sell a 50.1% stake, worth $2.6 billion, in a property services unit that could have eased some immediate pressure on the firm.

The pain is spreading in the market for Chinese junk bonds. Dollar-bond defaults from Chinese property developers are rising quickly as the country’s housing market slumps, and the problem could worsen as a wave of debt from the beleaguered industry comes due in the coming months, the Wall Street Journal reported. Real-estate developers dominate China’s international high-yield bond market, making up about 80% of its total $197 billion of debt outstanding, according to Goldman Sachs.

German power retailer Ziegler Strom-Vertrieb said on Thursday it would stop delivering to customers in Kappelrodeck in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg at the end of 2021 due to spiralling wholesale prices, Reuters reported. It is the second small power supplier in Germany this week to announce it will stop operating due to the surge in gas prices. “With our procurement conditions, we can no longer offer customers market-compatible prices,” Ziegler said in a notice on its website.