Headlines

Singapore's state investor Temasek sees growing investment opportunities in Europe as the impact of trade tensions on the economic climate makes some companies more attractive in terms of valuations, a senior executive told Reuters on Thursday, Reuters reported. A trade war, which followed U.S. President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" on April 2, had led to volatility in global markets and prompted some investors to focus more on European assets.

South Korea’s central bank kept interest rates steady Thursday in a widely expected move, amid easing concerns over the economic outlook and caution against rising household debt, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decision follows a rate cut at the Bank of Korea’s previous meeting in May, when it moved to support the flagging economy. Since then, exports have rebounded despite higher U.S. tariffs, and domestic political unrest has subsided.

Chinese FTX creditors have formally contested the proposed reorganization plan of the bankrupt exchange in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, AInvest reported. The objection, filed by Weiwei Ji, a Chinese customer of FTX, alleges that the current payout proposal unfairly discriminates against creditors in “Restricted Jurisdictions,” including China and other regions. Ji argues that the plan violates Section 1129(b)(1) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code by allowing “unfair discrimination” between classes of similarly situated creditors.

The Canadian advertising market has been in turmoil for some years, with local broadcasters and online media players cutting jobs and losing market share amid shifting advertising demand, marketing budget cuts and U.S. streaming giants with ad tiers increasingly dominating the domestic media space, The Hollywood Reporter reported. But now that volatility has reached the Canadian podcasting business, with news The Podcast Exchange, a Toronto-based advertising reseller and branded content producer, has signaled it may seek bankruptcy protection.

While airline bankruptcy news in the U.S. have been dominated by Silver Airways and Spirit Airlines, a number of smaller airlines from around the world have also struggled to the point of having to cease operations over the last year, The Street reported. Founded as a charter and cargo airline meant to link the Western European nation with China, Air Belgium was accruing annual losses of €22 million (roughly $24 million USD) at the time it filed for bankruptcy protection and was ordered to go into liquidation.

More than 34,000 Quebec households filed for insolvencies, which includes bankruptcies, from June 2024 to May 2025, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB), the Montreal City News reported. That’s equivalent to 94 families in financial distress every day. This represents a 4.7 per cent increase — or 1,546 more cases — from the same time period last year. While this number is slightly lower than the national average, Quebec consumers outrank other provinces with the increase of bankruptcies filed in the past year.

The British police arrested four people, including three teenagers, on Thursday in connection with an April cyberattack that cost the retail giant Marks & Spencer millions of pounds and disrupted operations at Harrods and Co-op, the New York Times reported. Three males, two aged 19 and another aged 17, and one female, 20, were apprehended at their homes in the West Midlands and in London on Thursday morning, the authorities said.

Australia's central bank said on Thursday it was taking another major step toward a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a range of industry partners pursuing projects using real money and assets for the first time, Reuters reported. The Reserve Bank of Australia said its "Project Acacia" initiative would test 19 pilot cases involving money and assets, along with five proof-of-concept use cases involving simulated transactions. The trials involve a range of asset classes, including fixed income, private markets, trade receivables and carbon credits.

Anxiety over U.S. tariffs has been spreading across Japan, a central bank report shows, sending a worrying signal about the corporate outlook as trade uncertainty deepens, the Wall Street Journal reported. At a branch managers’ meeting held Thursday, the Bank of Japan’s local heads said that growing worries over higher U.S. tariffs have turned companies cautious about investment plans. Orders from the U.S. have also declined for some companies, a summary of the meeting showed.

It was reported on July 7 that Argeo and its Norwegian subsidiaries Argeo Survey, Argeo Robotics and Argeo Multiclient had resolved to file for bankruptcy as the group was in a challenging financial position, with limited liquidity and limited resources to satisfy its short- and long-term obligations, said to be due to a difficult market situation and the lack of necessary contracts to generate stable revenue, Offshore-Energy.biz reported. In the same announcement, it was stated that non-Norwegian subsidiaries in Scotland, Singapore and the U.S.