Headlines

China's Country Garden made interest payments on U.S. dollar bonds hours ahead of a grace period deadline, a person close to the firm said, pulling back from the brink of default for the second time in four days and bringing some relief to the country's crisis-hit property sector, Reuters reported. China's largest private property developer failed to pay coupons on the bonds totalling $22.5 million due on Aug. 6, exacerbating fears over how much cash it has left and keeping markets on tenterhooks throughout the bonds' 30-day grace periods.

Birmingham City Council has declared itself effectively bankrupt, the BBC reported. The largest local authority in Europe, it has issued a Section 114 notice preventing all but essential spending to protect core services. The pressures have been linked to a £760m bill to settle equal pay claims. In a joint statement, the leader and deputy leader of the Labour authority said the move was a "necessary step as we seek to get our city back on a sound financial footing".

B&M has sealed a deal to buy up to 51 Wilko stores from administrators following the collapse of the rival discount chain, PA Media reported. Wilko fell into administration last month, with insolvency experts from PwC spending recent weeks seeking to hammer out a rescue deal for the historic retailer. Administrators have held talks with a raft of suitors, including HMV owner Doug Putman, in order to save Wilko’s 400 stores and 12,500 jobs. On Tuesday, B&M European Value Retail said it has agreed to acquire up to 51 Wilko sites from the administrators in a deal worth up to £13 million.

Credit Suisse clients withdrawing their money as the bank headed for collapse likely accounts for the first significant balance sheet contraction in a decade for all banks in Switzerland, a report by the Swiss Bankers Association on Tuesday said, Reuters reported. In Switzerland, the balance sheet of banks fell 6.9% to 3,339.7 billion Swiss francs ($3.76 trillion) in 2022, said the Banking Barometer, an annual report on banking industry trends. "The downturn among the big banks was especially large and probably driven mainly by shifts in customer funds at Credit Suisse," the report said.

The World Bank is in advanced talks to potentially double its exposure to Turkey to $35 billion to help stabilize the Middle East’s largest non-oil economy, Bloomberg News reported. The discussions include a World Bank pledge of as much as $18 billion for projects over the next three years, in addition to more than $17 billion in programs already in place, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks aren’t public. The funding would include direct lending to the government as well as support for the private sector.

Consumer expectations for euro-area inflation inched up in July, remaining above the European Central Bank’s 2% target as officials ponder whether to hike or hold interest rates next week, Bloomberg News reported. Expectations for the next 12 months failed to slow, staying at 3.4%, the ECB said Tuesday in its monthly survey. For three years ahead, they rose to 2.4% from 2.3%. The results are the last major piece of price data before a Sept. 14 announcement that President Christine Lagarde has said will either extend or pause the ECB’s unprecedented campaign of monetary tightening.

Israel’s interest rates are high enough to bolster the shekel and ensure inflation slows to 3% or less by early next year, according to the country’s central bank governor, Bloomberg News reported. “We believe the current rate is in restrictive territory,” Amir Yaron told Bloomberg Television from Jerusalem. He spoke a day after the Bank of Israel kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 4.75%, even with the shekel having recently depreciated to a three-year low. The currency weakened 0.2% to 3.79 per dollar as of 2:10 p.m. local time.

Italy is preparing to cancel its controversial membership in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, engaging in an elaborate diplomatic dance to avoid angering Beijing and triggering retaliation against Italian businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani held talks in Beijing on Sunday and Monday to facilitate as smooth an exit as possible from the initiative while laying the groundwork for alternative economic deals with China.

Nubank, one of Latin America's biggest fintech companies, announced on Tuesday the launch of personal loans for the Mexican market, aiming to boost its financial services portfolio in the region's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The new product will allow customers to obtain personal loans in less than five minutes through its platform, the digital bank's Mexican arm, known as Nu Mexico, said in a statement. The service will be available to employees on a test mode before hitting the market in the following months, it added.

Industrial production in Brazil slipped by more than expected in July, data from government statistics agency IBGE showed on Tuesday, providing an initial sign the sector may cap economic growth in the third quarter, Reuters reported. Industry was key for the surprisingly strong growth recorded by Latin America's largest economy in the three months through June, but overall it has been stuttering this year as the sector grapples with high interest rates. In July, IBGE said, industrial output was down 0.6% from June, missing the median forecast of a 0.3% drop in a Reuters poll of economists.