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Ex-Cambridge Analytica CEO Tells Lawmakers He Lied on Video
Former Cambridge Analytica Chief Executive Officer Alexander Nix said reports that he withdrew $8 million from his now-defunct company are untrue, and that he lied to an undercover journalist because he believed it was what "the client wanted to hear," Bloomberg News reported. He told a committee of British lawmakers investigating the impact of social media on recent elections yesterday that he now has "no involvement" in Cambridge Analytica, which is moving through bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S., or associated companies that are under management of a court appointed administrator in the U.K. The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that investors who reportedly want to rebrand and relaunch Cambridge Analytica are in a dispute with Nix after he allegedly withdrew millions of dollars from the company shortly before it collapsed, citing people involved in the dispute.

Cambridge Analytica Revenue Fell as Questions About Data Tactics Surfaced
Cambridge Analytica LLC enjoyed good results for 2016, when it worked for the campaign that helped to elect President Donald Trump, but its business declined sharply in the next year as questions mounted about its tactics, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Revenue at the data-mining company was only about $5 million in 2017, after topping $25 million a year earlier, according to new bankruptcy-court records. Cambridge — facing allegations that it misused information culled from Facebook Inc. — and its related SCL Group of companies are shutting down under the supervision of courts in the U.K. and the U.S. Court papers filed on Thursday in New York by Cambridge Analytica and its sister company, SCL USA Inc., offer only a partial glimpse into the affairs of the company controlled by the daughters of billionaire Robert Mercer. In March, British data-privacy authorities seized the servers that contain most of Cambridge Analytica’s “financial and other records,” and the authorities, the Information Commissioner’s Office of the U.K., won’t give them back, the court papers say.

India’s $210 Billion in Bad Debt Lures Funds Hunting for Returns
India’s two-year-old bankruptcy law, which gives creditors more power to restructure troubled companies, is luring more and more offshore investors from as far as Canada to buy the nation’s bad debt, Bloomberg News reported. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a Canadian pension fund manager, has made $600 million available to Edelweiss Group for investment in local distressed assets, according to R.K. Bansal, an adviser for Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co. Hong Kong-based SSG Capital Management Ltd. sees more opportunities in such assets, and foreign funds including Oaktree Capital Group LLC and Varde Partners are also keen to participate in the fledgling market. India’s banking sector is coping with about $210 billion of soured or problem loans, a legacy of a borrowing spree following the global financial crisis and an economic slowdown after that. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code introduced in 2016 has given rise to opportunities for funds to acquire borrowers’ distressed assets. High potential profits on those deals attract funds: SC Lowy Financial HK Ltd. expects annualized returns of about 15 percent, according to Chief Investment Officer Soo Cheon Lee.
Former OW Bunker Manager Sentenced to 18-Month Jail Term
A Danish court yesterday sentenced the former manager of OW Bunker's Singapore subsidiary to 18 months in prison after he was found guilty of granting credit outside his mandate, contributing to the bankruptcy of the marine fuel oil supplier, Reuters reported. The 2014 bankruptcy of OW Bunker, then the world's leading supplier of marine fuel oil with a 7 percent market share, sent shockwaves through the global shipping industry and left investors and business partners scrambling to cover their losses. The city court of Aalborg said it found Lars Moller, head of Dynamic Oil Trading in Singapore, guilty of giving a trading partner an unrecoverable credit worth $90.2 million without having the authority to do so from the management in Denmark and without recording it in the company's accounting system.

Kuwait Pension Fund Tries to Force Abraaj Into Bankruptcy
Kuwait’s pension fund is trying to force private-equity firm Abraaj Group into bankruptcy proceedings over allegedly not repaying a $100 million loan, according to a court document, upending efforts to save Dubai’s star investor, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a document filed May 22 in the Cayman Islands court system, Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security says Abraaj is “substantially insolvent” and unable to repay the loan and $7 million interest by the agreed upon date, which is Sunday. The Kuwait fund has asked the court that Abraaj’s assets be liquidated and distributed to creditors in proceedings in the Cayman Islands, where the firm’s holding company is incorporated. The petition marks the latest blow for Abraaj since investors in its $1 billion health-care fund, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, disputed how their money was used. Some of those investors hired a forensic accountant, who found that Abraaj had moved sums of money out of the health-care fund to finance its business rather than buy or develop hospitals and clinics in Africa and Asia as it was intended.

EU Agrees on New Capital Rules, Large Banks Secure Easier Terms
European Union finance ministers reached an agreement on Friday on reforming bank capital rules, a major step towards boosting the bloc’s financial stability and a stepping stone towards a deal on a backstop for its bank-rescue fund in June, Reuters reported. The accord came after 18 months of heated debate among the 28 EU governments on how to apply new global bank capital rules that overhauled financial regulations after the 2007-09 global crisis. It paves the way for another breakthrough on the bloc’s bank rescue fund, which ministers committed on Friday to equip with a backstop, although the final decision will be made only in June. The two measures are seen as interlinked because the banking capital rules are expected to reduce bank risk, which would allow more sharing of risk among euro zone countries in the form of a common backstop to prop up the sector’s rescue facility, known as Single Resolution Fund. Under the accord, which must be approved by EU lawmakers, European banks will have to abide by a new set of requirements aimed at keeping their lending in check and ensuring they have stable funding sources.
First Big Bankruptcy Success Hands $5.2 Billion to India Lenders
The biggest asset sale under India’s new bankruptcy law offers a breather to the nation’s banks, a number of which posted record losses for last quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Tata Steel Ltd. on Friday bought insolvent Bhushan Steel Ltd. and is paying 352 billion rupees ($5.2 billion) to Bhushan’s creditors. This is about 63 percent of the 560 billion rupees claimed by a consortium including State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, the biggest government-controlled lenders in the country and Bhushan Steel’s largest creditors. Their shares rose on Monday. Banks had provisioned for a discount on the outstanding debt of more than 50 percent, said Ravikant Bhat, an analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd. in Mumbai. “The successful resolution of Bhushan is a positive structural development for the banking sector.”