Headlines

Just a few weeks ago, China Evergrande, the world’s most debt-saddled real estate developer, was writing its next chapter and working to resolve financial disputes with its creditors. Then a stream of bad news came and the pages were torn up, the New York Times reported. Staff at the company’s wealth management arm have been detained by the authorities. Two former top executives are reportedly being held, and its billionaire chairman is under police surveillance.

More than 5,000 new businesses were set up in Wales this summer, according to new research from R3, the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body, BusinessNewsWales.com reported. R3’s analysis of data provided by Creditsafe shows there were 5,014 start-ups in Wales over the summer months – an increase of 7.1% on last year’s figure of 4,683. Welsh start-up numbers peaked in August of this year, when 1,693 firms were launched, after falling between June (1,672) and July (1,649). This was a change on the trend in 2022, when numbers decreased during the summer months.

After FTX crashed, the world of crypto seemed to belong to the largest exchange, Binance. Less than a year later, Binance is the one in distress, the Wall Street Journal reported. Under threat of enforcement actions by U.S. agencies, Binance’s empire is quaking. Over the past three months, more than a dozen senior executives have left, and the exchange has laid off at least 1,500 employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a decline in business. And while Binance still looms large in crypto, its dominance is dwindling.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is exiting Russia by selling its operations there to a new crypto exchange known as CommEX, the Wall Street Journal reported. “As we look toward the future, we recognize that operating in Russia is not compatible with Binance's compliance strategy,” said Noah Perlman, Binance's chief compliance officer. Binance said on Wednesday that "off-boarding" Russian customers would take up to a year. It didn't give financial details of the deal.

Brazil’s central bank raised its 2023 economic growth forecast while warning of a looming drop-off in activity next year as monetary policy remains tight, Bloomberg News reported. The bank forecasts gross domestic product will expand 2.9% this year, more than the 2% growth estimate from June, according to its quarterly inflation report published on Thursday. It sees activity growing 1.8% next year. By comparison, analysts surveyed by the monetary authority have raised their GDP estimates to 2.92% for 2023 and 1.5% in 2024.

Hungary's central bank could not cope with curbing inflation so the government stepped in and helped rein in price growth with its own tools, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Thursday, turning up the heat on the bank, Reuters reported. Hungary's inflation, which peaked above an annual 25% in the first quarter, is still the European Union's highest at 16.4% in August but is expected to retreat to around 7% by December. High inflation has come at a big cost, as the economy could end up in recession for the whole of 2023.

Mexico’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged for a fourth straight meeting and increased its inflation projections for next year, a sign that borrowing costs could stay higher for longer, Bloomberg News reported. Banxico, as the central bank is known, voted to hold the key rate at 11.25% on Thursday, matching the forecasts of all 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The IMF's executive board on Thursday approved a $1.3 billion loan from its new Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) to help Morocco bolster its resilience to climate-related disasters, Reuters reported. The North African country had requested funds from the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) new trust well before the devastating earthquake that struck in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains on Sept. 8, killing more than 2,900 people. The approval comes weeks before Morocco hosts the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, in Marrakech from Oct. 9-15.

A public spending boom and generous tax cuts carried out by Argentina’s Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who’s also running for president in the October election, pose new setbacks to the country’s $44 billion program with the International Monetary Fund, according to the Washington-based lender, Bloomberg News reported. “The recently adopted policy measures and announcements add to Argentina’s challenges,” IMF chief spokesperson Julie Kozack said at a press conference in Washington Thursday.

Bankers and private credit funds are working on a financing deal of around €1 billion ($1.05 billion) to back a potential buyout of French insurance broker Kereis as the sale process kicks off, Bloomberg News reported. A debt package of that size would equate to around five times Kereis’ approximate €180 million earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Insurance brokers have been a lucrative target for PE firms because of their recurring revenue streams, and due to the fragmentation of the industry.