Headlines

Lion Electric Co., the Canadian maker of electric school buses, has failed to find new investor backing ahead of a deadline on the expiry of its credit agreements, the Globe and Mail. The manufacturer will therefore file for bankruptcy protection in a bid to restructure, it confirmed in a statement Tuesday. The Saint-Jérome, Que.-based company, one of the province’s big industrial hopes in the shift to electric vehicles, had been scrambling to secure new capital from new or existing investors and figure out a way to deal with a debt that’s ballooned to nearly US$300-million.

Sweden’s Intrum AB has struck an agreement with a noteholder group that could resolve a key obstacle in the debt collector’s bid to restructure in U.S. bankruptcy court, Bloomberg News reported. The company had “come to terms” with the group of debt holders ahead of a hearing in the US bankruptcy court, according to Andrew M. Leblanc, a company attorney. The agreement requires the consents of other parties, a process that’s currently underway, he said at a Monday hearing in Texas.

Distressed textile giant PT Pan Brothers is closing in on its debt restructuring after seven months of negotiation with creditors, according to people familiar with the matter, as it works to avoid becoming the second Indonesian clothesmaker to be declared bankrupt this year, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors will vote Wednesday on the latest 8.6 trillion rupiah ($537 million) restructuring proposal by Pan Brothers, Bloomberg News reported earlier.

The New Zealand government said it expects the economy to exit years of recession in early 2025 supported by significant reductions in interest rates, the Wall Street Journal reported. A midyear update of the budget forecasts the farm-rich economy to grow 0.5% for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, before accelerating to 3.3% in the next fiscal year. However, the stronger growth momentum won’t speedily patch up the government’s budget bottom line with a return to surplus not expected until 2029.

Chinese leaders agreed last week to raise the budget deficit to 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) next year, its highest on record, while maintaining an economic growth target of around 5%, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The new deficit plan compares with an initial target of 3% of GDP for 2024, and is in line with a "more proactive" fiscal policy outlined by leading officials after December's Politburo meeting and last week's Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC), where the targets were agreed but not officially announced.

Communist-run Vietnam is planning its boldest bureaucratic reform in decades, slashing ministries, agencies and broadcasters in a bid to reduce bottlenecks and red tape, but risking short-term "paralysis", officials and investors said, Reuters reported. Under the plan, five ministries, four government agencies and five state TV channels would be among the bodies that will cease to exist, according to Communist Party documents reviewed by Reuters and reports in state media.

Argentina is weighing whether to introduce a managed exchange rate regime — a “dirty float” — once it lifts its current foreign exchange controls in 2025, according to policymakers, Bloomberg News reported. The South American nation has been restricting foreign exchange and capital market operations for the past five years, forcing exporters to sell their dollars. The controls are also preventing companies from sending dividends abroad and limiting individuals from buying foreign currency.

Ecuador has completed its second debt-for-nature swap, this time unlocking $460 million to protect and manage the forests and wetlands of its Amazon rainforest, NGO The Nature Conservancy said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. By buying-back over $1.5 billion of its discounted existing bonds with cheaper new money, Ecuador will realise almost half a billion dollars of savings over a 17-year period to invest in conserving the terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems of the Amazon.

The housing affordability crisis that has frustrated young Americans for a decade has now taken hold in many big cities in Europe and beyond. The common threads: robust job growth, rising demand and not enough new development, causing rents and sales prices to rise faster than wages, the Wall Street Journal reported. Globally, homes are now less affordable than they were in the run-up to the 2008 housing crisis, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund.

Developing nations, already set for a turbulent 2025, are having to cope with ballooning interest payments on $29 trillion of debt that built up over the last decade, Bloomberg News reported. A record 54 countries are spending more than 10% of their revenues on interest payments, according to the United Nations. Some, including Pakistan and Nigeria, are using more than 30% of revenue just to pay coupons.