VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike maker that gained a zealous following, tripled its sales in the pandemic and raised more than $180 million in funding, declared bankruptcy last month, leaving riders in limbo, the New York Times reported. That’s because the eye-catching e-bikes, which start around $2,000, are built from proprietary parts that only the company makes, available mostly at company-run service centers. And many of the bikes’ functions are linked to VanMoof’s smartphone app.

Robert Bull, the majority owner of British bungalow giant RoyaleLife, saw his public profile reach new heights this year when he entered The Sunday Times Rich List for the first time. In a piece to accompany his entry, Bull, 46, told of how he had become bankrupt in 2016, but had since recovered to build a £4-billion ($5.1 billion) business that specializes in selling pre-fabricated dwellings to over-45s. His net worth was estimated by The Sunday Times at around £1.9 billion. The actions of an alleged gangster could threaten all of that.

Ukraine's economy is expected to grow by about 5% next year driven by investment in reconstruction and stronger consumer demand, a senior Economy Ministry official said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Natalia Horshkova, head of the ministry's department for strategic planning and macroeconomic forecasting, said the ministry expected gross domestic product to grow by around 2.8% this year. "We expect 5% growth in 2024. The driver will be investment dynamics," she told a roundtable on the economy.

Cineworld Group said it has emerged from chapter 11 bankruptcy after nearly 11 months, coming out with lower debt and a new slate of management and board, Reuters reported. The world's second largest cinema chain operator behind AMC Entertainment said it has appointed former Chair and CEO of Warner Bros Ann Sarnoff to its board, along with four other members to join new Chairman Eric Foss and CEO Eduardo Acuna. The movie chain operator and owner of brands such as Regal, Cinema City, Picturehouse and Planet had filed for U.S. bankruptcy in early September to restructure its massive debt.

Gross domestic product in the eurozone grew 0.3 percent in the second quarter of 2023, a stronger result than economists predicted. But the recovery, after zero growth in the first quarter, was not consistent across countries, the New York Times reported. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, stagnated in the second quarter, and prospects for a recovery throughout the year remain low, as many of the country’s heavy industries rely on energy and have suffered from the price increases triggered by the war in Ukraine.

British home prices fell further last month as borrowing costs held back demand, one of the largest mortgage lenders said, although the rate of decline showed a chance that the market could yet avoid a hard landing, Bloomberg News reported. The Nationwide Building Society said prices fell 3.8% in its July survey from a year ago, quicker than a 3.5% drop in the previous month. While economists expected a slightly larger decline of 4%, it was the third straight month that prices had fallen at their fastest pace since the global financial crisis in 2009.

The Czech economy is struggling to recover from a short recession as high interest rates and shrinking real wages curb consumption, spurring a debate about when monetary easing should start, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product grew 0.1% in the second quarter from the previous three months, less than policy makers expected, according to a flash estimate published by the Czech Statistics Office on Monday. The economy shrank 0.6% from a year earlier.

The role of Ukraine’s banking system is one of the less told stories of the nation’s resilience. It survived the loss of assets to occupation, power outages and a 30% collapse in GDP without bank runs, service interruption or any significant closures, Bloomberg News reported. State-controlled lenders have played a part. Before the war, the state-run lenders that control about half the system’s assets were seen as part of the country’s problem. They were notorious for poor governance and backroom deals with their government owners.

Rising borrowing costs and stagnating Chinese demand for European goods could pave the way for another miserable economic winter for the eurozone this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. These headwinds, which also include the continuing war in Ukraine and stubbornly high inflation, mean the region is likely to keep underperforming the U.S. for now, according to fresh data and recent sentiment surveys.

Britain's banks and building societies have until the end of August to justify to regulators why some of their savings rates are low or face sanctions, the markets watchdog said on Monday, as Bank of England rates look set to rise to their highest since 2008, Reuters reported. While the sector has been passing on higher interest rates rapidly to mortgage customers, lawmakers have criticised lenders for not upping rates on savings worth around 1.5 trillion pounds ($1.9 trillion) at a similar speed, amid a cost-of-living crisis.