Headlines

A bankruptcy court in Paraná state has scheduled an auction to sell two plants belonging to Brazilian soy processor Imcopa International SA on Dec. 4, the company said on Friday, Reuters reported. Imcopa, one of the largest non-genetically modified soy crushers in Brazil, said the sale of the plants in the towns of Araucária and Cambé was foreseen in its reorganization plan approved by creditors in 2017. In a statement, privately owned Imcopa said the ruling was handed down on Thursday by Judge Mariana Gusso. The company declined to comment further.

UK-based jeweler Links of London’s fall into administration has led to loss of 38 jobs at its head office in London, administrator Deloitte said on Friday, adding that there have been no job losses in any stores, Reuters reported. The luxury jewelry retailer, owned by Greek Folli Follie, has around 28 standalone stores across the UK and Ireland along with seven kiosks and employed 350 people when it appointed administrators earlier this month.

China’s slipping economic momentum is sparking a shift in government priorities—away from curbing mounting debt levels and toward a renewed focus on raw growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product growth fell to 6% for the third quarter of the year, hitting the bottom of Beijing’s targeted range, amid clearer signals the government wants to ramp up infrastructure spending and official support for businesses, the kinds of policies that fueled borrowing—and economic expansion—after the 2008 financial crisis.

Danske Bank’s headquarters in Copenhagen, reminiscent of a Greek temple, speaks of an illustrious past, The Economist reported. But Denmark’s biggest bank has “no vanity left”, says a spokesman. Since 2008 it has been embroiled in a disaster every five years. After one during the financial crisis, it was again in crisis mode in 2013 when the board sacked Eivind Kolding after 18 catastrophic months at its helm. Last year Thomas Borgen, Mr Kolding’s successor, resigned amid revelations about Danske’s role in a vast money-laundering scandal.

The new head of the International Monetary Fund urged policy makers this week to undertake measures to bolster the slowing global economy and asked for a show of hands from those who planned to follow her recommendations. Not many hands went up. Finance ministers and central bankers who gathered in Washington for the IMF’s fall meetings in recent days said in interviews and public events that the biggest risks to the global economy are trade-related uncertainties and divisions among nations over how to reduce them, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from the world’s most important economies gave their backing to international efforts to find a new way of taxing the profits of multinational companies, the Financial Times reported. Meeting in Washington, the G20 welcomed the recent progress and the announcement last week of an OECD initiative to find a compromise way of taxing profits, particularly of tech giants.

China needs to fundamentally reform its delivery of development finance aid in the Pacific region to ensure it does not create a “debt trap” for vulnerable island nations through its Belt and Road Initiative, a report has warned, the Financial Times reported. The report published on Monday by the Lowy Institute warns if the current $6bn lending splurge from Beijing into the region continues in a “business as usual” manner then it poses a significant risk of future debt sustainability problems.

Sterling and European markets are likely to succumb to another wave of volatility this week as the odds of a no-deal Brexit have tightened after UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s bid to pass his European Union withdrawal agreement in parliament on Saturday was scuppered, according to traders and analysts, The Irish Times reported. “Markets are likely to remain nervous over the next few days,” said Ronan Dunphy, an economist with Investec Ireland, even though he still sees the prospect of the UK crashing out of the EU at the end of October as “remote”.

The International Monetary Fund will stand by Argentina as it works through its economic crisis, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday. She added that the Fund was waiting to see the future policy framework adopted by the Latin American country, which holds an election later this month in which a change of government is widely predicted, Reuters reported.

More than two-thirds of global corporate bond fund managers expect default rates to climb over the next 12 months, according to a new report from the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers, Bloomberg News reported. In a September survey of over 100 member institutions in more than 20 countries, 68% of respondents said they expect defaults to rise, up from 58% three months ago. In the survey, 74% said North American default rates will climb, while 75% expect European default rates to increase, up from 52% in June.