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The company that owns iconic Nottingham bike manufacturer Raleigh has begun insolvency proceedings, BBC.com reported. Accell, based in the Netherlands, bought Raleigh for $100m in 2012 but said on Wednesday it had "exhausted all the available options" and was "no longer able to meet its financial obligations". It comes after a difficult period for Raleigh, which saw redundancies in 2024 and losses of £30m in accounts released the following year. Jonas Nilsson, chief executive of Accell, said it was "a deeply sad and frustrating situation".
Mud Jeans has run out of lifelines. On Wednesday, co-owner and CEO Dion Vijgeboom announced on LinkedIn that the pioneering sustainable denim brand has declared bankruptcy, WWD.com reported. Just last month, the Dutch brand launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise 300,000 euros (about $343,000) to strengthen working capital and inventory management and to fuel commercial growth in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the DACH region. The brand said it was investing in its denim foundation by improving fits, launching an international website and developing stronger brand identity.
About one-third of Singapore's exports to the U.S., worth S$9.5 billion ($7.4 billion), will be affected by a new U.S. tariff of 12.5% imposed on July 24, Trade Minister Gan Kim Yong said, Reuters reported. Gan said in parliament on Wednesday that the tariffs imposed under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 would affect about a third of Singapore's exports, including optical instruments and chemical products. Exempt exports include energy and energy products, certain electronics and aerospace products, as well as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Gan said the U.S.
President Donald Trump's administration has refunded about $100 billion from tariffs that it collected before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those duties, a court filing showed, Reuters reported. The court filing in the U.S. Court of International Trade said that "refunds (duties plus interest) of approximately $100 billion have been completed using the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries Refund component, certified by the agency, and sent to the U.S. Department of Treasury for disbursement." The amount as of the end of July was noted in Tuesday's filing by U.S.
Retail sales in the eurozone fell in June, reflecting the enduring hit to consumer confidence as the war in Iran drags on, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decline in overall sales volumes of 0.3% on month is the second in the four full months since the start of the conflict, according to data published on Thursday by the European Union’s statistics agency. The sales decline was driven by a 1.1% drop in Germany and 0.5% in France—the eurozone’s two largest economies.
LIV Golf has secured a “lead investor” to keep the lights on, and the league will move forward with players becoming majority equity holders, CEO Scott O’Neil has announced, Aljazeera.com reported. A signed agreement is in place with the unnamed investor and has been approved by the LIV Golf board, O’Neil said on Wednesday. The transaction is expected to close in September. No details on the amount of the capital infusion were announced. Multiple reports said LIV Golf will return next season with 10 events – five international and five in the United States.
Brazil’s central bank cut interest rates for the fourth consecutive time as inflation cools and still-elevated borrowing costs weigh on the economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The bank’s monetary committee, or Copom, cut the Selic benchmark lending rate to 14% from 14.25% on Wednesday, as expected. But the monetary authority indicated that uncertainty around its inflation projections remains higher than usual, especially given conflicts in the Middle East.
German manufacturing orders unexpectedly jumped in June, a display of continued resilience amid high levels of uncertainty about the course of the conflict in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. Factory orders rose 3.1% on month following a downwardly revised 0.3% rise in May, data agency Destatis said Thursday. In the less volatile three-month comparison, new orders from April to June were up 1.3%, Destatis said.
Dwindling water levels on some of Germany’s major rivers, worsened by heat and drought, are raising fears that badly constrained riverboat cargo traffic may deal yet another blow to the struggling economy, StratsTimes.com reported. The Rhine riverbed is partially dry near steelmaker Thyssenkrupp’s blast furnaces in the city of Duisburg, exemplifying how the low waters pose a new challenge for German industry. The waterway also winds past car factories, chemical plants and big river ports as it passes through the industrial heartland of Europe’s biggest economy.
As President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine extends for a fifth year, Russian businesses can no longer afford to keep pace with the Kremlin's war machine in the wage race, Bloomberg News reported. Years of acute labor shortages have pushed salaries well ahead of productivity growth, forcing companies to pay more to produce the same amount of output. In prior years, surging corporate revenues absorbed the pressure. Now, with the wartime economic boom at an end, businesses are shifting into survival mode, slashing costs in ways that may push many out of the race for workers.