Headlines

Credit stress among European industrial companies rose during the third quarter to the most since the depths of the pandemic as weaker demand and investment pressures weigh on the sector, Bloomberg News reported. Those companies are facing the highest level of distress since September 2020, according to the Weil European Distress Index, which tracks financial market conditions and company performance. Manufacturing powerhouse Germany remained the country experiencing the most distress among the continent’s major economies, the study by law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges also said.

A recent study from Intrum indicates that while the number of businesses experiencing payment delays has slightly decreased compared to last year, the wave of bankruptcies is expected to persist through the fall. The accommodation and food service sectors remain among the hardest hit, but public administration, defense, and mining industries have seen the steepest rise in payment delays. Regionally, the highest concentration of businesses facing financial difficulties is in Northern Savonia and North Karelia.

Holders of billions of dollars in Venezuelan bonds and notes have emerged as last-minute protagonists in a U.S. court case set to decide the ownership of oil refiner Citgo Petroleum, threatening to derail an auction to compensate more than a dozen companies for unpaid debts and expropriations by the country, Reuters reported. At least two groups of holders have resorted to other U.S. courts to enforce their claims, pursuing the same Citgo assets that industrial conglomerates, mining and oil firms have been pursuing for years.

The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) has cautioned homebuyers against buying any properties in a total 314 projects registered with the authority that are undergoing proceedings at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) of 2016, the Economic Times of India reported. Various banks, financial institutions, and other entities extending line of credit to the real estate sector have initiated the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against these companies.

China’s central bank is moving ahead with a 500-billion-yuan swap facility to let securities, fund and insurance firms get liquid assets for their stock purchases, the Wall Street Journal reported. The establishment of the roughly $70.60 billion facility is part of a broader stimulus package introduced late last month by People’s Bank of China Gov. Pan Gongsheng to revive the country’s struggling economy.

Qoo10 CEO Ku Young-bae attended a court hearing held on Thursday to determine whether to issue an arrest warrant on fraud and embezzlement charges related to his e-commerce group's large-scale payment delays to vendors, the Korea Times reported. Ku appeared at the Seoul Central District Court for his hearing, which will be shortly followed by arrest warrant hearings for Ryu Kwang-jin and Ryu Hwa-hyun, CEOs of Qoo10's e-commerce subsidiaries TMON and WeMakePrice, over the massive insolvency incident.

Prosecutors of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) have been investigating for around a year possible frauds and the activity of an organised criminal group related to real estate developer Nordis, G4media.ro announced, quoting sources familiar with the investigations, Romania-Insider.com reported. However, no individual was indicted despite more than ten complaints filed against those behind Nordis since the beginning of the year, according to PressHub.

Argentina's triple-digit inflation, the world's highest, is starting to slow but this offers little relief for residents whose salaries have stayed the same while costs of basic goods sky-rocketed and the government slashed state subsidies, Reuters reported. "We're losing track of what's expensive and what's cheap," said university professor Daniel Vazquez while shopping in Buenos Aires. "Prices keep going up and the only thing that isn't going up is salaries." "The gap is very, very big," he said.

Fiscal imbalances could threaten Latin America’s success in taming inflation, as governments across the region boost growth through more public spending, according to the World Bank, Bloomberg News reported. Latin America is “having a hard time” defending macroeconomic discipline as governments miss or loosen their fiscal rules, William Maloney, chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the bank, said during an interview. As countries across the region increase minimum wages to boost consumption, they are jeopardizing gains in taming historically elevated inflation rates.

Israel’s central bank left interest rates unchanged even as it lowered economic-growth forecasts, with the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon causing inflationary pressures and preventing the country from joining a global easing cycle, Bloomberg News reported. The bank kept its benchmark rate at 4.5% on Wednesday, in line with the estimates of all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. It was the monetary committee’s sixth straight hold.