Headlines

Funai Electric, a Japanese maker of audio and video equipment, received court approval for its bankruptcy plan on Thursday, credit research firm Teikoku Databank said, the Japan Times reported. Funai Electric, based in Daito, Osaka Prefecture, had some ¥46.1 billion ($303.6 million) in liabilities, Teikoku Databank said. Founded in 1961, the company had boasted a significant presence in Japan and abroad as an original equipment manufacturer.

Thames Water Utilities Ltd. unveiled a plan Friday seeking to raise up to £3 billion ($3.9 billion) from some of its creditors as it struggles to stave off insolvency while negotiating a lasting solution, Bloomberg News reported. The UK’s largest water and sewage provider said it wants to borrow more money and extend existing debt due to mature next year. It also wants to access cash reserves to avoid running out of operating capital by early next year. Without new funds and a restructuring of its debt load of around £16 billion, the utility would likely be temporarily nationalized.

Swiss Steel has "categorically denied" rumors of insolvency proceedings. This is the ailing steel group's response to media reports that the company could soon run out of money despite the recent capital increase, SwissInfo.ch reported. Despite reports to the contrary, the Swiss Steel Group is in regular and constructive contact with all lenders,” the company stated on Friday. Last weekend, both the NZZ am Sonntag and the SonntagsZeitung reported that Swiss Steel’s financial situation had deteriorated further.

China’s central bank kept a key policy rate steady in October, a widely expected move after officials made a flurry of rate cuts last month to support the ailing economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China on Friday injected 700 billion yuan of liquidity into the country’s banking system via its one-year medium-term lending facility at an unchanged rate of 2.0%. That compared with a total of 789 billion yuan of MLF loans due this month, marking a net cash withdrawal of 89 billion yuan.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle said on Friday that its potential sellers have decided to cease talks for a stake sale in the company, which is the electric vehicle unit of the debt-laden China Evergrande, Reuters reported. In May, liquidators of the parent company - which held 58.5% in the EV unit - said they were talking to a third-party buyer to sell a 29% stake in the EV group, with an option to sell the rest of the holding within a certain period of time.

Eurozone consumers expect price rises to slow over the coming year, with the rate of inflation seen falling closer to the European Central Bank’s target, according to a survey released Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB pays close attention to inflation expectations because they affect the wages demanded by workers in pay negotiations, and in turn future price rises.

Governments around the world need to rebuild fiscal capacity and central banks should think carefully about the timing of interest rate cuts, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday, Reuters reported. "In the short term, a focus on the fiscal side as an immediate priority. Fiscal buffers have been exhausted, yet fiscal pressures are high," Georgieva said in a press conference during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.

European Union governments should refrain from interfering with banking consolidation, which the bloc needs to compete with other major economies, two senior bank executives said on Friday, Reuters reported. The challenge of closer financial integration has taken fresh relevance in the euro zone after Italy's UniCredit last month unveiled a stake in Commerzbank and said it would consider a full takeover, sparking a backlash in Germany.

Brazil's federal government on Friday reached a multibillion-dollar settlement with the mining companies responsible for a 2015 dam collapse that the government said was the country's worst-ever environmental disaster, the Associated Press reported. Under the agreement, Samarco — a joint venture of Brazilian mining giant Vale and Anglo-Australian firm BHP — will pay 132 billion reais ($23 billion) over 20 years.

Russia’s central bank raised its key interest rate to the highest level since the invasion of Ukraine as it struggles to cool an overheating economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Russia on Friday lifted borrowing costs for the third straight meeting, to 21% from 19%. The key rate was last near that high in late February 2022 when the central bank countered a slump in the ruble that followed the start of a lengthening war on the country’s neighbor.