Singapore / DPA Renowned economist Song Seng Wun was not surprised at all to learn, in March last year, that he was among 15 employees being laid off from CIMB Securities. After 25 years in Singapore’s financial services industry, Song has endured enough business cycles to understand that job cuts come hard and fast in his field when business conditions ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s economic quagmire, with an ever-growing corruption scandal on top of the longest and deepest recession in at least a century, is producing an unprecedented era of corporate debt restructuring in the country. The borrowing binge of Brazilian companies went on during the country’s economic boom earlier this decade has now turned into an albatross as tens of thousands ...

Bloomberg Puente, an Argentine investment bank and brokerage, is looking to expand its international reach with plans for an initial public offering in 2017. The company, which seeks to sell a stake of about 20 percent through the IPO, may consider holding the offering in London or New York, company officials said on Thursday. Puente also announced that Emilio Ilac ...

Bloomberg CPFL Energias Renovaveis SA, Brazil’s biggest renewable-energy generator, will invest 1.5 billion reais ($400 million) in renewable energy this year even as the country is hit by the worst economic crisis in decades. The Sao Paulo-based company will keep growing, organically and through acquisitions, Andre Dorf, CPFL Renovaveis’ president, said by phone from Sao Paulo. “We will invest in ...

Bloomberg Colombia became the fourth Latin America country this year to take advantage of lower borrowing costs in Europe by selling debt denominated in the single currency, helping push euro bond sales from the region to a record €10.8 billion in the first quarter. Colombia sold €1.35 billion ($1.5 billion) of 10-year bonds to yield 3.875 percent. That’s down from ...

Bloomberg Chicago taxpayers, already reeling from a financially strapped school system and mounting pension costs, are looking at a final tab of about $390 million to end ill-timed bets on interest rates. The city council on Wednesday authorized issuing as much as $200 million of bonds to help pay termination fees, estimated at $100 million, to unwind derivative contracts linked ...

Brussels / AFP European Union leaders began a difficult summit on Thursday to push for a crucial agreement with Turkey to curb the continent’s massive migration crisis despite threats by Cyprus to quash the deal. The proposed plan, which would make Turkey a central pillar of the divided EU’s response to the crisis, has been hailed by German Chancellor Angela ...

Rome / AFP Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has warned Western powers Libya could spiral out of control if they try to intervene militarily in the conflict-wracked North African state. Speaking in a rare interview, the military-backed ruler of one of the region’s biggest powers said the West and its allies should instead concentrate on strengthening the army of ...

Ankara / AFP German diplomatic missions and a school in Turkey were closed on Thursday for security reasons, the German consulate in Istanbul said, less than a week after a suicide car bomb attack in the capital. The measure concerns the German embassy in Ankara as well as the consulate and German school in Istanbul, it said on its website. ...

LONDON / AP A handful of UK lawmakers have warned US President Barack Obama not to intervene in the debate about whether Britain should remain in the European Union. In an open letter on Thursday, five lawmakers and Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU UKIP party, argue that interfering in the debate would mark an “unfortunate milestone” in Obama’s presidency. ...