Bloomberg The Hong Kong dollar may be sliding into the weak end of its trading band, yet money managers see no reason for stock investors to turn bearish just yet. Unlike previous bouts of weakness in the pegged currency — when fears of a Chinese hard landing sent capital fleeing the city’s equities — this time around there’s plenty of ...

Bloomberg The Irish government’s selldown in lender Allied Irish Banks (AIB) had enough demand for the entire 3.8 billion euros ($4.3 billion) worth of stock on offer on the first full day of the sale, an update on the deal showed. Shares in the bank are being offered at between 3.90 euros and 4.90 euros each in the initial public ...

Bloomberg India’s banks have been ordered to use the country’s courts to resolve bad loans totaling about 2 trillion rupees ($31 billion) issued to 12 large debtors. The Reserve Bank of India told the banks to use insolvency laws to find a solution for the debtors, which account for a quarter of the country’s total bad loans, before moving on ...

Bloomberg Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RNBZ) chief Graeme Wheeler complained to the head of one of the nation’s largest banks about an economic commentary written by its research department. In a letter to Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) Chief Executive Officer Anthony Healy dated May 11, Wheeler said the BNZ’s Markets Outlook note of May 8 “appeared to bring ...

Bloomberg The Czech central bank stepped up efforts to cool the mortgage market, warning that rising house prices may spiral out of control and hurt lenders in a country with one of Europe’s lowest levels of housing loans. As record-low interest rates helped fuel a credit expansion in the ex-communist European Union member, policy makers in Prague are pushing for ...

Bloomberg Brad Demong and Leander Christofides, senior private-credit investors who left JPMorgan Chase & Co. last year, rejoined the bank to run a newly formed global special situations group in its asset management division. As the team’s co-chief investment officers, the pair will report to Anton Pil and Chris Hayward, co-managing partners of JPMorgan’s global alternatives unit, according to a ...

Dubai / WAM The Mohammed bin Rashid Fund (MBRF), the financial arm of Dubai SME, an agency of Dubai Economy mandated to develop the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, and Beehive, the first and only regulated peer-to-peer lending platform in the MENA region, providing innovative online financing solutions for SMEs, have signed an MoU to facilitate SME financing and ...

ASTANA / WAM Ministers and high-level officials from 85 countries have sent a strong signal in a statement adopted at the Ministerial Conference during the Eighth International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development, which has opened in Astana, Kazakhstan. Seven voluntary actions in the Ministerial Declaration outline ways to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy system, from establishing national ...

DUBAI / Reuters Abu Dhabi’s Dana Gas said it would propose restructuring $700 million of outstanding Islamic bonds on Tuesday to a committee of holders of the sukuk, which it said was not sharia-compliant. “The company has recently received legal advice that the sukuk in its present form is not sharia-compliant and is therefore unlawful under United Arab Emirates law,” ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Businesses across the UAE are scrambling to hire new talent for their rapidly changing IT needs, brought about by the consumer shift to mobile, evolving web technologies and increasing cyber threats, according to a study of the UAE’s IT job market just released by GulfTalent, one of the largest online recruitment portals in the Middle East. ...