Headlines

Italian utility Enel SpA has called a halt to further acquisitions in Brazil for the time being as it gears up to complete asset sales of up to 1.5 billion euros (1.34 billion pounds) in the second half of the year, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "I don't see appetite for further acquisitions in Brazil at this stage," Enel CEO Francesco Starace told analysts on a conference call on Tuesday after the company released first-half results.

South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) has lost its preferred bidder status to buy Toshiba's NuGen nuclear project in Britain as Toshiba looks at other alternatives, the Japanese company said on Tuesday. The project in Moorside, northwest England, was expected to provide around 7 percent of Britain's electricity when built, but has faced setbacks after Toshiba's nuclear arm Westinghouse went bankrupt last year, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Officials here are investigating whether the government of former Prime Minister Najib Razak used funds from a China-backed infrastructure program to help pay debts owed by the state investment fund at the center of one of the world’s biggest graft probes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in July froze over $20 billion in Malaysian infrastructure projects that are part of China’s One Belt One Road initiative, saying the contract values appeared to be inflated, in what he called a sign of possible corruption. Now, Mr.

The Government should invest €22 million in education, training and access to apprenticeships in an effort to halve long-term youth unemployment by the end of 2019, the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) said in its pre-budget submission, The Irish Times reported. Young people from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds with limited formal qualifications should have greater access to apprenticeships, while schemes should be developed across the country to “provide supports and address barriers”, the organisation said.

To wire a car, you need copper. To make batteries, you need zinc. And to build a house, you need both of these metals and more -- steel for the pipes, aluminum for the frames and tin for the roof, the Financial Times reported. Base metals like these are used in thousands of different ways in nearly every industry, so many analysts look at their prices for a read on the global economy. Recently the Bank of England’s Tom Wise wrote about this dynamic and found that metal consumption tracks PPP-weighted global GDP growth.

Ryanair has invited pilots’ union representatives to talks in anticipation of a fourth strike at the airline this week, The Irish Times reported. The move came as pilots employed by Ryanair in Germany voted for industrial action in support of a pay claim. Members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) – part of trade union Fórsa – plan a fourth one-day strike on Friday, August 3rd in a dispute over base transfers, promotions, leave and other issues.

Is growing corporate debt a bubble waiting to burst? Globally, debt of non-financial corporations has grown by $29tn in the ten years since the financial crisis, nearly as much as the growth in government debt, the Financial Times reported. But while a market correction is likely, this growth is not as ominous as it might seem. Look no further than the bull market in corporate bonds that has emerged over the past decade. The shift to bond financing by companies is a welcome diversification in financial markets, giving large corporations an alternative to bank loans in financing.

At dusk under a smoggy sky, in the heart of north-east China’s rust belt, workers in beige uniforms file out of Shenyang Machine Tool, a lossmaking state-owned enterprise that is a pillar of the regional economy, the Financial Times reported. It looks like the end of any day in the company’s 35-year history, but workers know the factory’s best days are behind it.

The head of one of India’s largest state-run banks says the government needs to ease its grip over the lenders or risk slowly killing off the sector, Bloomberg News reported. Tight government control makes it hard to attract talent or take the tough decisions needed to address the bad debts weighing down the banks, according to Ravi Venkatesan, the outgoing chairman of Bank of Baroda.

Japan has, more or less, constantly been in the midst of the most radical monetary policy experiment in modern history since 2012, a Bloomberg View reported. Is it working? It probably depends who you ask.