Headlines

The company that operates retailers Ted Baker, Lucky Brand and Brooks Brothers plans to close a number of stores in Canada and the U.S. after months of declining sales pushed the operations into insolvency proceedings, the Globe and Mail reported. Ted Baker Canada announced the launch of liquidation sales on Friday, covering nine out of 25 Ted Baker stores in Canada and all of the brand’s locations in the U.S. The sales also affect all Brooks Brothers and Lucky Brand stores in Canada. The company has shut down its e-commerce operations for the time being.

National Company Law Tribunal yesterday noted that it would take a call on the fate of engine lessors for beleaguered airline Go First after studying the Delhi High Court order, the Economic Times of India reported. The Delhi HC, last month, had allowed aircraft lessors to retake possession of its aircraft telling the civil aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation to de-register the 54 aircraft.

A Black Country engineering group has commenced a liquidation process which could threaten around 160 jobs, BusinessLive reported. Walsall, U.K.-based specialist castings and machining group Chamberlain said the move had come following a winding-up notice being issued by the company's main power supplier. In a statement to the stock exchange, the listed company said discussions had been ongoing with its creditors and major shareholders about its plight.

China strongly opposed the United States' tariff hikes, its commerce ministry said on Tuesday, vowing it will take resolute measures to defend its rights and interests, Reuters reported. "U.S. raising Section 301 tariffs violates President Biden's commitment to 'not seek to suppress and contain China's development' and 'not to seek to decouple and break links with China'," said a statement by the ministry, adding the move will "seriously affect the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation." U.S.

The U.K. labor market loosened a little more, in a fresh indication that the Bank of England could start cutting rates as early as next month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Unemployment ticked higher in the three months to March, at 4.3%, according to figures set out Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics. This was in line with the expectations of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal and continues a trend of rising joblessness, taking the rate to the highest since the middle of last year.

Canada should take steps to introduce more mortgages with longer renewal terms, according to the country’s largest financial co-operative, Bloomberg News reported. More mortgage options, specifically those with 10-year terms, would help contain “payment shocks” faced by households when they renew their debt obligations after interest rates have increased, according to a report released Monday by Desjardins.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission has opened discussions with Islamabad on a new loan programme, a Pakistan finance ministry statement said on Monday, Reuters reported. The mission chief, Nathan Porter, met Pakistan's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb to "kick-start the discussions on further engagement with the fund." Aurangzeb informed the team of improvements in the macro-economic indicators over the course of the standby arrangement and underscored the government's commitment to continue and expand the reform agenda, the ministry said.

Grupo Aeromexico SAB is seeking a return to equity markets, filing for a US initial public offering two years after delisting from the Mexican stock exchange, Bloomberg News reported. The company intends to list American Depositary shares or ADS on the NYSE under the symbol AERO and there will be no public offering of the shares in Mexico, Aeromexico said in the prospectus. The company didn’t disclose the size or price range of the offering. Barclays, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Evercore ISI and Apollo Global Securities will be underwriters for the deal.

Brazil’s central bank said more restrictive rates are needed to fulfill its commitment to hitting the inflation target, according to the minutes to its split decision on borrowing costs that rattled investors, Bloomberg News reported. “In the end, it was unanimously concluded that a more contractionary and more cautious monetary policy was needed,” policymakers wrote in minutes to their May 7-8 rate decision, when they cut the benchmark Selic rate by a quarter-point to 10.5%.

Prices in Argentina are climbing, despite positive signs of a deceleration, with the embattled South American country's annual inflation rate set to edge closer to 300% when the government reveals the latest data on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Shopkeepers and consumers said that although monthly inflation readings have slowed since a peak over 25% in December, the change has yet to be fully felt on the ground. The inflation rate is set to edge back under single digits in April for the first time in six months.