Headlines

The country’s bankruptcy regulator has warned of the rising number of personal insolvencies affecting vulnerable Australians, as small business owners struggle to make ends meet due to mounting debts. Australian Financial Security Authority chief Tim Beresford said personal insolvency was “rising,” with rates increasing from about 10,000 last year, to 12,500 this year, and 15,000 next year. “The 10-year (annual) average is 23,000,” he told small business leaders at the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia national small business summit on Thursday.

The investment firm of U.S. businessman Richard Baker (NRDC) is among the two remaining bidders for Germany's most prominent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, business outlet WirtschaftsWoche reported on Friday, according to Reuters. Galeria, which recently filed for insolvency, is seeking a new owner after the collapse of its parent Signa, the Austrian-based property empire that has become the biggest casualty so far in Europe's real estate crisis.

German banks saw a jump in customers struggling to pay back commercial property loans in the fourth quarter, as the sector faces higher interest rates and shifts in consumer behavior exacerbated by the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Banks in the country saw their non-performing commercial real estate loans swell to €13.6 billion ($14.8 billion) at the end of December from €9.7 billion three months earlier, according to the European Banking Authority.

The holding company of Thames Water Ltd. defaulted on some of its debt after failing to make an interest payment, in the latest sign of the deepening crisis at the UK’s largest water utility, Bloomberg News reported. Kemble Water Finance Limited has sent a formal notice of default to the holders of its £400 million ($505 million) bonds due May 2026 as it didn’t pay interest due Tuesday, according to a statement. The parent company now needs to start talks with creditors to avoid a messy restructuring that could wipe out Thames Water shareholders.

A London law firm has lodged a bid to wind up non-league Southend United, BBC.com reported. Stewarts Law's winding-up petition has been published on an official public record. A judge in the Insolvency and Companies Court in London is due consider its claim on 17 April. Stewarts' petition has appeared on The Gazette website - an official public record. A notice says the law firm has taken action under the 1986 Insolvency Act and is "claiming to be a creditor" of Southend United Football Club Ltd.

India’s central bank kept its policy rate unchanged as the country’s economic growth remains strong and inflation eases, the Wall Street Journal reported. Reserve Bank of India Gov. Shaktikanta Das said on Friday that the monetary-policy committee decided to hold its policy repo rate steady at 6.50%. The country’s gross domestic product increased 8.4% from a year earlier for the quarter ended in December, picking up from the 8.1% expansion seen in the previous quarter. Growth was fueled by a government push to pave roads, expand railroads and upgrade the power grid.

Canada’s labor market unexpectedly lost jobs and the unemployment rate jumped to the highest level in more than two years, signaling greater slack in the economy that will test the central bank’s patient stance on rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported. The country shed 2,200 jobs in March and the unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.1%, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa. The figures missed expectations for a gain of 25,000 positions and a jobless rate of 5.9%, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Zimbabwe, in its latest bid to end the serial slide of the local dollar, has replaced it with a new unit called the ZiG backed by a basket of foreign currency and gold, Bloomberg News reported. Central Bank Governor John Mushayavanhu told a press conference in Harare, the capital, on Friday, that the ZiG — short for Zimbabwe Gold — would be launched on April 8 at an introductory level of 13.56 per dollar and a new interest rate set at 20%. That compares with the 130% on the old unit, which was the highest central bank rate in the world.

Venezuela's consumer price growth hit in March hit 1.2%, maintaining the same pace as February, the country's central bank said on Thursday, Reuters reported. March's inflation is the lowest since August 2022. The country's 12-month inflation through last month stood at 67.75%, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank figures. Venezuela's government is redoubling efforts to control inflation by holding the exchange rate at 36 bolivars to the dollar, while weighing its spending amid an election year.

On social media forums and among friends, young people in China are questioning whether to save for old age. Some are opting out, citing the shortage of jobs, low pay and their ambivalence about the future, the New York Times reported. Their skepticism betrays the enormous challenge for China’s leaders. Over less than three decades, the country has changed from a young society to an aging one. Seven straight years of plummeting births are pushing up the day when there will be fewer people working than retirees.