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South Korean supermarket chain Homeplus has pledged to fully repay its vendors, prioritizing small businesses, while apologizing for heightened concerns over its financial stability following a court's approval of its entry into a corporate rehabilitation program earlier this month, the Korea Herald reported.

Hudson's Bay Company is nearly a billion dollars in debt, according to court filings that paint a dire portrait of the struggling Canadian department store chain's finances, CBC.ca reported. The documents were submitted as part of its creditor protection filing last week. The company owes a total of $950 million to nearly 2,000 secured and unsecured creditors, including well-known apparel and beauty brands like Adidas Canada, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal Canada, Levi Strauss Canada, Michael Kors Canada, Nike Canada and Ralph Lauren.

Country Garden Services, the property services arm of China's Country Garden, on Friday forecast a higher full-year profit on the back of lower impairment charges, Reuters reported. The property services arm expects a net profit attributable between 1.60 billion yuan ($221.03 million) and 2 billion yuan for fiscal 2024 ended December, compared with 292.3 million yuan a year earlier. Country Garden Services said it benefited from optimising some businesses it had acquired previously that led to lower impairment charges for the year ended 2024.

The Chinese government has strongly criticized a planned deal by a Hong Kong conglomerate to sell ports in Panama and elsewhere to an investment group led by an American asset manager, warning that the deal would deprive China of needed influence over key shipping routes, the New York Times reported. The criticism marks an abrupt shift in Chinese policy toward Panama and the control of seaports around the world. When President Donald Trump raised concerns soon after taking office that China had too much power in the Panama Canal, his comments were initially ridiculed by Beijing.

Francois-Phillipe Champagne will be named as Canada’s new finance minister when Mark Carney takes over as prime minister on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Champagne served in several cabinet roles under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including foreign affairs, trade, and most recently as industry minister, where he was responsible for foreign investment files, including the government’s use of subsidies to try to attract automakers to build new plants.

The U.K. economy unexpectedly shrank in the first month of the year, the latest frustration for a relatively new government that has pledged to bring an end to a decade-and-a-half of stagnation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product was 0.1% lower in January than in the final month of 2024, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, weaker than the 0.1% rise expected by a consensus of economists. It also marks a slowdown from the 0.4% recorded in December.

Jockey Frankie Dettori is filing for bankruptcy following a long-running tax-avoidance case, The Telegraph reported. Dettori, who has ridden more than 3,300 career winners, announced the move three months after losing a court bid to retain anonymity in a battle with HM Revenue & Customs. He said: “For the last six-months, my advisors have been working with HMRC in an attempt to find a solution to my financial situation. “Regretfully, I will be filing for bankruptcy.

Japan’s largest labor union group said its workers secured the highest pay deal in more than three decades, supporting the case for further gradual interest rate hikes from the Bank of Japan, Bloomberg News reported. Some 760 affiliated unions under the trade union federation Rengo have so far secured an average pay gain of 5.46% in ongoing annual wage negotiations, according to its initial tally released on Friday. That’s the highest level since 1991 when compared with past final tally figures, and exceeded last year’s initial reading of 5.28%.

The European Central Bank has given UniCredit (CRDI.MI), opens new tab the green light to buy up to 29.9% of Commerzbank (CBKG.DE), opens new tab, the Italian bank said, adding it would likely wait until next year before deciding whether to pursue a full takeover, Reuters reported. With Germany up in arms against the potential acquisition, UniCredit's CEO Andrea Orcel, a veteran dealmaker, has thrust his bank into fast-moving Italian consolidation and put on ice his ambitions for a pan-European tie-up.

The United States' National Coffee Association asked the Trump administration to exempt the product from any tariffs, saying that the already adopted additional duties on Canada and Mexico could increase U.S. prices up to 50%, Reuters reported. In a letter seen by Reuters, NCA President and CEO Bill Murray told U.S.