Headlines

China’s companies racked up some towering bills as they expanded, and the world’s investors and lenders rushed to offer them even more money. Now the bills are coming due, and a growing number of Chinese companies can’t pay up, in a sign that the world’s No. 2 economy is feeling the stress from its worst slowdown in nearly three decades, the New York Times reported.

Chinese leaders pledged stepped-up efforts to boost slowing growth, as they try to manage a downshift in a maturing economy and fallout from the trade war with the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. An economic blueprint, approved today by President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders at the end of an annual closed-door conclave, promised more fiscal and monetary measures with the aim of supporting everything from consumption to infrastructure investment and employment in the coming year—all to ensure that the growth rate will be kept stable.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that airline industry profits will come in lower than forecast this year as passenger numbers and cargo volumes are held back by slowing economic growth and global trade wars, Bloomberg News reported. With less than a month left in 2019, the trade body lowered its annual profit estimate to $25.9 billion -- $2.1 billion less than it predicted in June, and almost $10 billion down from forecasts published a year ago.

British voters are headed to the polls today in an election that will likely determine whether the U.K. will leave the European Union at the end of next month or hold another Brexit referendum, the Wall Street Journal reported. The election is the most crucial, and divisive, the country has faced in a generation. Opinion polls put Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead with an average 10-point lead over opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, with more than 40 percent of the vote. That would translate into a healthy majority in Parliament for his Conservative Party.

Christine Lagarde is one of the most recognizable people on the world stage, but as president of the European Central Bank, a job she began six weeks ago, she is a cipher. That could begin to change today as Lagarde holds her first news conference as leader of the institution that has often determined Europe’s economic fate, the New York Times reported. The event follows a meeting of the bank’s Governing Council, which made no changes to monetary policy.

Thomas Cook is set to be relaunched by its Chinese owner, who plans to use the 178-year-old British tour operator’s brand on a travel platform targeting European customers, Bloomberg News reported. Fosun Tourism Group, the Shanghai-based company that bought Thomas Cook’s trademark following its dramatic collapse in September, will debut the platform in the first half of next year.

Administrators of a failed care home and hospitality group are trying to locate £50 million raised from private investors which is allegedly missing, the Times reported. Insolvency practitioners from two firms, Duff & Phelps and Quantuma, said that they were facing a “huge job” to locate and recover funds raised by Carlauren Group. Carlauren, which is based in Yeovil, and related companies have about 260 staff. It was established in 2015 and ran care homes, hotels and other businesses.

Carlos Ghosn, the longtime head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA, is preparing for the first of two trials in 2020 for what prosecutors and his former colleagues at Nissan call a pervasive pattern of financial misconduct and raiding of corporate resources for personal gain, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported. He denies wrongdoing, saying that he’s the victim of a plot by Nissan executives and Japanese government officials to prevent further integration with Renault. A guilty verdict in either case could put the 65-year-old in a Japanese prison through the 2020s.