For the past three years, steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has performed an extraordinary feat of corporate survival, Bloomberg News reported. The British industrialist managed to keep most of his empire of steel plants even as creditors circled, concerns arose about alleged wrongdoing regarding trades and he faced probes for suspected fraud and money laundering. Now his luck may be running out. Gupta’s Speciality Steel UK Ltd. unit went to court in London Wednesday to try to avoid liquidation.
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China will set another record for solar power installations this year even as the industry producing the equipment suffers from falling prices and profit margins, Bloomberg News reported. The country will install 230 to 260 gigawatts of solar capacity this year, said Wang Bohua, chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association. That will top the record of 217 gigawatts set last year, and is an increase from the group’s February forecast of 190 to 220 gigawatts.
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Chinese solar manufacturers will face a reckoning next year, with overcapacity and a fierce price war forcing many smaller firms out of business, according to the head of Anhui Huasun Energy Co., Bloomberg News reported. “A considerable number of smaller companies won’t be able to survive the first half of next year,” Xu Xiaohua, chairman and chief executive officer of the privately held firm, said in a panel discussion at the BloombergNEF Summit in Shanghai. However, the consolidation should pave the way for a rebound in prices toward the end of the year, he said.

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South Korea's finance ministry said on Wednesday it was ready to deploy "unlimited" liquidity into financial markets after President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted a martial law declaration he imposed overnight that pushed the won to multi-year lows, Reuters reported. The announcement came after Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok and Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong held emergency talks overnight, and as the central bank board abruptly met to approve rescue measures for the local credit market.
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The chief content officer of troubled Indian tech firm Byju’s and an ally of the company’s founder face financial sanctions in the US for their roles in stripping software, cash and other assets from businesses under court supervision, Bloomberg News reported. A federal judge is considering imposing millions of dollars in sanctions on Byju’s manager Vinay Ravindra and company ally Rajendran Vellapalath, who founded Dubai-based tech startup Voizzit Technology. At a court hearing yesterday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John T.
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Australia’s economy would have contracted sharply in the third quarter had it not been for a wave of state and federal government spending keeping it afloat, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The commodity-rich economy grew 0.3% sequentially in the quarter and 0.8% from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said, with government spending adding 0.6 percentage points to growth. “Without the contribution from public final demand the economy would have gone backwards,” Chalmers told reporters.
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China’s central bank governor reaffirmed plans for a supportive monetary policy to promote growth next year, as the economy faces fresh challenges from a looming trade war with the U.S. during Donald Trump’s second term, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China will “adhere to an accommodative monetary policy stance and orientation” in 2025, Governor Pan Gongsheng said at a financial forum in Beijing on Monday, according to a statement published by the central bank.
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A deluge of cheap Chinese goods washing over the developing world is jacking up tensions between China and the Global South, complicating Beijing’s plans to build alliances as it confronts escalating trade tensions with the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. With President-elect Donald Trump saying he plans to significantly increase tariffs on China, Beijing is hoping to unload more of its excess factory production to developing-world countries, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Brazil.
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Japan could use a wake-up call over its mountain of debt through credit rating firms warning of the potential for cuts to sovereign bond ratings, according to a government advisor, Bloomberg News reported. “Recent fiscal policy has turned into a popularity contest,” said Mana Nakazora, a credit analyst on an economic panel advising Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. “I’d rather that credit rating firms say that they’ll cut ratings” to warn authorities of risk, she said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday.
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