Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA sold about 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) of troubled loans, reaching its goal for reducing risk two years early. About 1.6 billion euros of unsecured non-performing loans were sold to Illimity Bank SpA, Monte Paschi said in a statement on Monday. Separately, it sold 0.2 billion euros of unlikely to pay loans, …

Bloomberg Lime Asset Management Co, the firm at the centre of a scandal that sparked unprecedented withdrawals from South Korean hedge funds, now faces an investigation into its investment in a troubled US fund. A senior official at the Financial Supervisory Service said South Korea’s top financial watchdog will ask prosecutors to probe Lime’s investment in funds run by International …

Bloomberg China’s local government financing vehicles are seen as the top investment among the nation’s corporate bonds next year as state backing limits the risk of default, a survey showed. Local governments’ financing vehicles, which now have 8.4 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) outstanding, have long had a shadow over them because many lack sustainable revenues to make debt payments, and …