Headlines

Bank of China Vice Chairman and President Liu Jin resigned for personal reasons effective on Sunday, the bank said, Reuters reported. The state-owned lender said that its board had approved Chairman Ge Haijiao to serve as acting president, according to a filing released by the bank on Sunday.

Elliott Investment Management is the leading bidder in a U.S. court-ordered auction of the parent company of Venezuelan-owned refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp., Bloomberg News reported. Elliott was competing against bidders including independent refiner Vitol Group and Canadian miner Gold Reserve Inc., which was working on a joint bid with billionaire Carl Icahn’s CVR Energy. Elliott has now been granted exclusivity to negotiate a deal. The auction process has been long and winding, and Elliott’s emergence as the top contender doesn’t necessarily mean it will end up with the asset.

Sweden’s major banks pose a vulnerability to the financial system due to their exposure to “highly-indebted property companies,” according to minutes from the Riksbank’s policy meeting earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported. The property risks are mainly operational, for example from elevated and still rising levels of vacancies in the office segment, as well as a high rate of bankruptcies in the near term, Olof Sandstedt, the bank’s head of financial stability, said in the statement. “This means that there is still a risk that the banks’ loan losses may increase,” Standstedt said.

Sentiment at German companies edged lower this month, as Europe’s largest economy shows little sign of a recovery amid a persistent manufacturing slump, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Ifo Institute’s business-climate index fell to 86.6 in August, from 87.0 in July, data showed Monday. It marked the fourth decline in as many months. “The German economy is increasingly falling into crisis,” Clemens Fuest, president of the Ifo Institute, said. Companies assessed their current situation as worse, and expectations for the future were more pessimistic, he said.

Brazil's central bank chief said on Saturday that discussing monetary policy transmission will become increasingly difficult without addressing fiscal issues, citing the growing burden of public debt driven by expanded government spending, Reuters reported. Roberto Campos Neto stressed that income transfer programs implemented during the pandemic are now larger and have become permanent. In Brazil, 50 million people are "gaining money from the government compared to 43 million people who are employees and entrepreneurs," he added.

Home insurance is becoming unaffordable for a growing number of Australian households as increased climate threats drive up their premiums, potentially putting billions of dollars in mortgage loans at risk, a report said on Monday, Reuters reported. As of March 2024, 15% of Australian households were experiencing home insurance affordability stress, which is defined as having premiums that cost more than four weeks' of their incomes, the report from the Actuaries Institute found.

The Canadian arbitrator appointed to resolve a messy railroad labor dispute to protect the North American economy has ordered employees at the country’s two major railroads back to work so both can resume operating, the Associated Press reported. Saturday's order means Canadian National will be able to continue operating the trains it restarted on Friday morning just over a day after it locked out workers. But Canadian Pacific Kansas City likely won't be able to restart its operations before 12:01 a.m. Monday, when workers were ordered to return.

Yuzhou Group Holdings Co. filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy Thursday in New York, a move by the defaulted property developer to seek US court recognition for its offshore debt restructuring and ward off litigation, Bloomberg News reported. The Chinese builder, which failed to pay $2.9 billion of dollar notes with interest as of the end of 2023, is undergoing restructuring in Hong Kong and Cayman Islands. Read more.

German chipmaker Infineon has settled a more than decade-long legal dispute over insolvent former unit Qimonda, agreeing to pay a higher than initially planned 753.5 million euros ($837 million), both companies said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The settlement with Qimonda insolvency administrator Michael Jaffe will not affect Infineon's operating profitability, a company spokesperson said, adding that it had already taken provisions amounting to 221 million euros over the case.

A union filed a strike notice against Canadian National Railway Co. just hours after trains began rolling again on Friday, creating a new obstacle in a labor dispute that has upended North American supply chains, Bloomberg News reported. The Teamsters union told the Montreal-based railway that it plans to withdraw the services of its roughly 6,500 members at 10 a.m. Toronto time on Monday if there’s no agreement on a new contract. Thousands of workers at Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.