Headlines

Northvolt AB is closing in on an about $300 million rescue package that includes debt and equity, buying time for the cash-strapped Swedish battery maker to stabilize production and line up longer-term financing, Bloomberg News reported. A combination of shareholders, lenders and customers are participating in the bridge funding, and the instruments vary among these groups. Discussions are in the final stages, though there remains some risk they can still fall apart.

Three U.S. education-software companies that bankrupt Indian tech-firm Byju’s bought for $820 million just a few years ago will be put up for sale in order to repay lenders, a court-appointed trustee said, Bloomberg News reported. It is unclear how much the units are worth and if all three — Neuron Fuel Inc., Epic! Creations Inc. and Tangible Play Inc. — will attract offers, the trustee, Claudia Springer, said in an interview.

Japan’s consumer-price inflation slowed in September due mainly to the impact of the government’s energy subsidies, possibly giving the Bank of Japan more time to think about the timing of its next move, the Wall Street Journal reported. Overall consumer prices rose 2.5% in September from a year earlier, compared with 3.0% growth in August, government data showed Friday. The pace of inflation slowed for the first time in five months as the government reintroduced its program to cut household utility bills.

China’s economy slowed in the third quarter, a deceleration that highlights the urgency of Beijing’s recent pivot toward greater support for growth after months of hesitancy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Investors’ initial euphoria over Beijing’s weekslong barrage of stimulus measures and messages of reassurance has faded, however, as doubts have crept in over just how effective any planned stimulus will be at revving up the ailing economy and bringing a festering property crisis to a close.

The United States will use restrictive tools like tariffs to push back against China's practice of making far more goods than it needs in order to dominate global markets, White House official Daleep Singh said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the Asian giant has amassed growing market power that it uses for economic and geopolitical leverage, and Washington viewed the costs as unacceptable. "So that's the problem, and it's not abstract.

India’s central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said an interest rate cut at this stage would be “very, very risky” and he’s in no hurry to join the wave of easing by global policymakers, Bloomberg News reported. While inflation is expected to moderate, there are “significant risks” to the outlook, Das told Bloomberg News Deputy Editor-in-Chief Reto Gregori at the India Credit Forum in Mumbai on Friday. Inflation and growth dynamics are well balanced, he said, but policymakers need to remain vigilant about price pressures.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is considering raising taxes levied on entrepreneurs when they sell their businesses, as part of her push to raise as much as £40 billion ($52 billion) to balance Britain’s budget, Bloomberg News reported. Britain’s finance minister is looking at cutting a capital gains tax easement known as business asset disposal relief in her spending plan on Oct. 30. The policy allows entrepreneurs to pay a reduced tax of 10% on profits they make from the sale of their companies, rather than the standard 20% levy for higher-rate taxpayers.

Light has filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S., a step by the Brazilian electric utility company to complete a restructuring deal that creditors approved in May in its home country, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Light on Tuesday filed for chapter 15 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. Light, which provides energy for most of Rio de Janeiro, began a reorganization in Brazil in 2023, as well as in England in July. The company has assets of $582.1 million and carries more than $2.1 billion in debt, including two issuances of U.S. notes totaling $600 million.

Slightly over two-fifths of the bankruptcy orders in the first half of 2024 were due to business failures, with debtors borrowing from various sources including banks, credit card issuers, licensed moneylenders and private individuals, the Straits Times reported. This was stated by Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) board member Alvin Tan in Parliament on Oct 16. He was responding to two questions by Mr Derrick Goh (Nee Soon GRC) and labour MP Melvin Yong (Radin Mas) on the causes for the rising number of bankruptcies in Singapore.

The Japanese bankruptcy trustee overseeing funds from defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has extended its payout deadline by yet another year. Many who’d looked forward to the end of October 2024 to find out if they’d receive a payout now have another year to wait—until October 31, 2025, CoinGeek.com reported. This was due to many remaining creditors still not receiving payouts, having missed key submission deadlines, or after encountering other issues in the process. At stake are the remains of Mt. Gox’s 2014 deposit pool of JPY698,246,328 and around 200,000 BTC.