Fitch Financial News

Diverging performances once again dominated the quarterly earnings of Canada’s top banks, with just three of the six lenders beating analysts’ expectations.

The partner of former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries who was indicted on sex trafficking charges along with Jeffries and another man has been released on $10 million bond

Crisil Ratings has maintained a positive outlook on the Adani Group, citing its financial flexibility and strength in the business, even as top executives, including Gautam Adani, face bribery charges in the US. This comes after a series of ratings downgrades by other agencies, such as Fitch and Moody's. Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an indictment and a civil complaint in the US District Court against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, and other key functionaries of Adani Green Energy.

«We have changed the outlook on all seven issuers to negative from stable,» Moody's said.

Vedanta Resources (VRL) plans to raise $1.2 billion in the near term through senior unsecured notes to refinance existing debt and improve its financial position. The company is in talks with investors to raise $500 million in the coming weeks through a bond issue to partly refinance $606 million of outstanding 13.875% notes maturing in 2028. This is a re-tap of the bonds raised in September and the instrument is likely to be priced around 10.2%, where the bond is trading.

Britain's motor finance industry is in disarray, with analysts warning of worst-case scenarios similar in magnitude to the country's costliest consumer banking scandal.

IIFL Finance's ratings with a stable outlook, saying that after the lifting of the ban on new gold-backed lending imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the firm's franchise will gradually stabilise. The RBI in September, had lifted regulatory restrictions it had imposed in March on IIFL Finance's gold-backed lending business. Fitch Ratings has affirmed India-based IIFL Finance Ltd's long-term issuer default rating (IDR) and medium-term note programme rating at 'B+', and removed the ratings from 'Rating Watch Negative'. The outlook on the IDR is stable.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s 2020-21 Economic Survey had observed, “Never in the history of sovereign credit ratings has the fifth largest economy in the world been rated as the lowest rung of the investment grade (BBB-/Baa3). Reflecting the economic size and thereby the ability to repay debt, the fifth largest economy has been predominantly rated AAA.

The former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is expected to be arraigned on federal sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges in a New York court

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, his romantic partner and a third man have been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges

Toronto-Dominion Bank is facing a cap on future asset expansion in the United States and is being fined about US$3 billion for failing to monitor activities linked to money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and other regulators.

Adani Green Energy plan to raise up to $1 billion by issuing U.S. dollar-denominated bonds, two merchant bankers involved in the deal said on Tuesday. The companies will issue bonds with a maturity of 20 years in one or more tranches starting this month, the bankers said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

REC Ltd on Saturday said it has raised USD 500 million through green dollar bonds to support various renewable energy projects. The 5-year note has a coupon rate of 4.75 per cent per annum to be paid semi-annually and the maturity date of September 27, 2029. This is the first US dollar bond issuance from an Indian public sector enterprise in 2024, REC said in a statement. The latest fund raise was part of USD 10 billion global medium-term programme of the company. The proceeds will be used to finance eligible green projects, in accordance with REC's Green Finance Framework as per green bond principles of Climate Bond Initiative, London and RBI's ECB guidelines, with a second-party opinion from Sustainable Fitch, it said.

Moody's downgraded Israel's credit rating Friday, citing heightened geopolitical risks as its conflict with Hezbollah worsened and prospects for a ceasefire in Gaza receded. «The key driver for the downgrade is our view that geopolitical risk has intensified significantly further, to very high levels,» said Moody's in a statement. This came as it shifted Israel's ratings down two notches from A2 to Baa1, marking its second downgrade this year.

How Canada’s top banks perform in the United States will play a key role in how investors view them in the coming year, say Fitch Ratings Inc. analysts, who expect the recent differences in valuations between the Big Six lenders to continue instead of the sector trading as a group.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has lifted the restrictions imposed on the gold loan business of IIFL Finance with immediate effect, the company informed in a short stock exchange notice. RBI had prohibited the company from sanctioning, disbursing, or selling any of its gold loans in March this year citing certain supervisory concerns. The central bank had cited deviations in assaying and certifying purity and net weight of the gold at the time of sanction of loans and at the time of auction upon default, breaches in loan-to-value ratio (LTV), significant disbursal and collection of loan amount in cash far in excess of the statutory limit among others, while announcing the ban. IIFL said that the lifting of the ban with immediate effect, allows the company to resume the its gold loans business in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.

Rob Kennedy tried something different after a 40-year career in Ontario’s auto sector: he headed back to the classroom.

The U.S. Federal Reserve's easing cycle will be «mild» by historical standards when it starts cutting rates at its September policy meeting, ratings agency Fitch said in a note.

Arevalo co-manages Jupiter's EMD range of funds, which have a total of around £572m in assets under management. He joined the asset manager in 2016 from Pioneer Investments, where he worked as a portfolio manager within the EMD team. Fitch downgrades Jupiter credit rating amid persistent outflows Prior to that, he held several manager and analyst roles at Standard bank, Gibraltar Bank and The International Bank of Miami. A spokesperson for Jupiter confirmed Arevalo's exit and added that co-manager Reza Karim will succeed him as head of EMD and take over the leadership of the str...

The ratings agency said on Wednesday (5 September) that Jupiter's IDR would be demoted to BBB- from a BBB, which it said reflected a trend of net outflows registered over the past give years, included in the first half of this year.  Jupiter reported total outflows of £3.4bn in the first half of 2024,  which led to a 2% drop in assets under management to £51.3bn at the end of the period, down from £52.2bn at the end of 2023. «While net outflows were partly related to certain one-off factors, Fitch views that Jupiter's still comparatively concentrated franchise and business profile hav...

The rising cost of a U.S. investigation into Toronto-Dominion Bank’s money-laundering controls is casting a darkening shadow over one of the strongest bank credit ratings in the world, with Moody’s Ratings following rivals in placing a negative outlook on the firm.