Headlines

Drugmaker Mallinckrodt said on Thursday that it had initiated examinership proceedings in the High Court of Ireland, as it seeks protection from actions taken by creditors during the chapter 11 bankruptcy process, Reuters reported. The Ireland-based company filed for its second bankruptcy in the United States last month, with a restructuring plan that would cut $1 billion from what it owes to victims of the U.S. opioid crisis. Read more.

Indian budget carrier Akasa Air has been forced to cut flights in the short-term after many of its pilots quit abruptly, sparking a legal dispute in court where the company has warned that further resignations may even force it to shut down, Reuters reported. A small set of pilots "abandoned their duties" and left without serving their mandatory contractual notice period, causing a disruption of flights, but the airline is on course to invest in growing its operations and ordering more planes, CEO Vinay Dube told employees in an email on Tuesday.

Purecod has entered bankruptcy proceedings and is in the middle of a major restructuring, according to the company’s CEO, Eirik Jørs, SeafoodSource.com reported. Founded in 2020, Sykkylven, Norway-based Purecod was granted a permit to farm a maximum of 3,120 metric tons standing biomass of Atlantic cod at sea in closed pens at Røneset, Storfjorden, Norway from the Møre and Romsdal county municipality in March 2022. Its permits remain active, though the company never began farming fish. Now, the company is four weeks into the first phase of what Jørs described as a two-step bankruptcy process.

China's economic slowdown is polarising government advisers over the best way forward, with advocates of structural reforms now emerging from the shadows in a challenge to others calling for more state spending to shore up faltering growth, Reuters reported. The rare debate among advisers, who influence policy-making but do not wield direct power, comes as global markets scramble for clues on how authorities will halt a downturn that has left millions without jobs, forced investors to flee and the yuan to tank.

The Bank of England halted its long run of interest rate increases on Thursday as the British economy slowed, but it said it was not taking a recent fall in inflation for granted, Reuters reported. A day after a surprise slowing in Britain's fast pace of price growth, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted by a narrow margin of 5-4 to keep Bank Rate at 5.25%. Four members - Jon Cunliffe, Megan Greene, Jonathan Haskel and Catherine Mann - voted to raise rates to 5.5%. It was the first time since December 2021 that the BoE did not increase borrowing costs.

Hungary’s finance minister may propose raising taxes on banks after a year-long recession and the fastest inflation in the European Union blew the country’s budget off course. Shares in OTP Bank Nyrt., the country’s largest lender, plunged, Bloomberg News reported. Record bank earnings expected this year may prompt the government to expand a windfall tax on lenders, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga told economists on Thursday.

German bonds tumbled to send the government’s benchmark borrowing costs to the highest in over a decade, as investors bet on European interest rates remaining elevated for longer, Bloomberg News reported. The yield on 10-year securities jumped eight basis points to 2.78%, the highest since 2011. The latest move up follows hawkish messaging by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday and strong US labor data Thursday, leading traders to expect the European Central Bank will keep policy tight for years.

Turkey’s central bank delivered another sizable interest-rate hike, matching expectations but disappointing a market that was pricing in more aggressive moves to curb inflation running at almost 60%, Bloomberg News reported. The lira reversed gains after the Monetary Policy Committee raised rates for a fourth straight time to bring its benchmark to 30% from 25%.

Russia’s largest bank is attempting to seize some of Glencore Plc’s Russian assets as compensation for what it says is an unpaid oil trading debt, Bloomberg News reported. Sberbank PJSC is asking a Moscow court for €114.8 million ($123 million) in compensation after its Swiss commodity trading unit sold oil to Glencore but never received payment, according to documents published on the court website. The claim highlights the precariousness of international companies’ assets in Russia since the war in Ukraine triggered several waves of sanctions and retaliatory measures.

South Africa’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, while signaling that borrowing costs are likely to stay higher for longer because of persistent inflation risks, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee maintained the rate at a 14-year high of 8.25% for a second consecutive meeting, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said at a briefing north of Johannesburg on Thursday. That matched the median estimate of 26 economists in a Bloomberg survey. “The job of tackling inflation is not yet done,” Kganyago said. “Risks remain.