Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Thursday September 8 2016 Housing and Economic stories


Emerging markets on track to set sovereign debt record - (www.cnbc.com) Developing economies are on course to raise a record sum in global debt markets this year, as ultra-low rates in the developed world cheapen borrowing costs for countries from Asia to South America. After a slow start, governments in countries including Mexico, Qatar and Argentina have issued bonds worth $90 billion in 2016. By the end of the year, credit strategists at JPMorgan expect sales of debt by emerging markets in "hard" currencies such as dollars and euros to reach more than $125 billion — boosted by Saudi Arabia's first appearance in global bond markets. A punishingly low yield environment for money managers has sparked a jump in demand for emerging market fixed debt in the past few months, as lack of inflation keeps interest rates in big economies on hold and prompts additional monetary easing from the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England.

“Zombie Apocalypse”: The Hanjin Bailout that Didn’t Happen - (www.wolfstreet.com) “Shatters the complacency” that TBTF carriers “are immune to failure”. South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co., the world’s seventh largest container carrier and a unit of Hanjin Group, Korea’s 10th-largest conglomerate that also controls Korean Air Lines, has been in financial trouble for a long time. Bankruptcy or rather a government bailout, not only for Hanjin, but also of the second largest Korean carrier, Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), has been bandied about for as long. HMM was restructured, with creditors taking a big hit, including its main creditor, the state-owned Korean Development Bank which in the process became HMM’s largest shareholder, which boils down to a taxpayer bailout. Pending regulatory approval, the restructured HMM will join 2M carriers Maersk Line and MSC in a new alliance next April.

Evergrande's debt burden just keeps on growing, squeezing shareholders - (www.reuters.com) Building up the second-biggest corporate debt pile in China does come at a cost. China Evergrande Group, the nation’s No.2 real estate developer reported last week that its borrowings grew to $57 billion by the end of June, including so-called perpetual bonds. Only state-owned Petrochina owes more. The crushing impact of that burden became clear in its first-half results as despite reporting a 12.6 percent jump in sales, Evergrande said that income attributable to shareholders slumped 74 percent to 2.46 billion yuan ($368 million). That was mainly because of a 60 percent rise in payments on the perpetual bonds as well as a surge in marketing costs.

40,000 Students In Limbo, 8,000 Employees Fired As ITT Suddenly Shuts Down - (www.zerohedge.com) The company said the closure is due to an investigation and sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education. "It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service," the company stated Tuesday. "Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees." As previously reported,  ITT Tech stopped enrolling new students on August 29, just a few days after it was cut off from a significant amount of federal funding by the government. ITT's collapse was catalyzed when the Department of Education effectively killed the company two weeks ago, when it told the company on August 25 that it couldn’t enroll new students who use federal financial aid. The school accused federal officials of forcing the closure and denying it due process. The company has been the subject of state and federal probes for various reasons, including its recruitment tactics, lending practices and job placement figures.

 

No ‘For Sale’ Sign? Silicon Valley Buyers Aren’t Deterred - (www.nytimes.com) Swell-looking home you’ve got here. Ever think about selling it? How about to me, right now? That is increasingly the approach the house-hungry are using in Silicon Valley, where the number of homes on the market is so small that would-be buyers are driven to desperation. Their solution: seek out homes that are, in theory at least, not for sale. Sue Zweig grew up in this working-class community, back when people said it was for the newly wed and the nearly dead. Not long ago, when she was out walking her dog, she began to realize things were different. A woman pulled over, asked about houses for sale in the neighborhood and ended up spending 45 minutes poking around Ms. Zweig’s living room and kitchen. Her four-bedroom house was not on the market then, and it was not on the market a year or so later when another eager buyer showed up. This time, Ms. Zweig, a nurse, and her husband, Steve Zweig, made a deal for $1.375 million, a seven-figure profit over what they had paid in 1987. They moved out of the house last year.




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