Headlines

The Standard Group on Wednesday refuted claims that the organization was facing bankruptcy and would be shutting down, Kenyans.co.ke reported. In a statement issued by the Group’s Acting Chief Executive Officer, Joe Munene, the media house stated that the information circulating online was purporting a false narrative. “The Standard Group PLC wishes to inform its audiences, customers, suppliers, staff, shareholders and all other stakeholders that information circulating on social media touching on the integrity of the Company, its Management and Staff is fake”, read the statement.

Country Garden has hired Kroll to carry out a liquidation analysis ahead of a court hearing in mid-May, according to three sources, as the embattled Chinese developer pushes ahead with its offshore debt restructuring plan, Reuters reported. China's biggest private developer is facing a liquidation petition for nonpayment of a $205 million loan, with a court hearing in the case set for May 17. Companies that are restructuring their debt normally conduct an independent liquidation analysis to assess potential recovery rates for creditors that they can present in court, legal experts said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called out China’s ramped-up production in solar energy, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries, calling it unfair competition that “distorts global prices” and “hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world,” the Associated Press reported.

Following the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, automakers must navigate a possible disruption to their supply chain, Yahoo Finance reported. Baltimore is a key U.S. port for automotive imports and exports. Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO and President John Bozzella joins Market Domination Overtime to discuss how the industry will be impacted. Bozella claims Baltimore is the top port for automotive imports and exports of parts and vehicles. There is "no question there's gonna be some impact on the industry, what we don't know is the extent of the impact," he says.

Mexico’s economy will expand 2% to 3% in 2025 with a fiscal deficit equivalent to 2.5% of gross domestic product, according to a government estimate published Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. Inflation will slow to 3.8% by the end of 2024 and 3.3% by year-end 2025, from the current 4.4%, according to the preliminary numbers for the draft budget from Mexico’s Finance Ministry. Growth is forecast at 2.5% to 3.5% this year, above the average estimate by economists.

UBS has sealed the sale of Credit Suisse's securitized products business to Apollo Global Management as part of efforts to shed non-core assets after its takeover of the collapsed banking group, Reuters reported. Apollo will purchase $8 billion of "senior secured financing facilities,” UBS said on Wednesday, adding that it expects to make a net gain of about $300 million from the deal in the first quarter of 2024. The agreement is a renegotiation of the deal Credit Suisse had reached with the U.S. buyout fund in the Swiss banking group's last-ditch attempts at a revamp to avoid collapse.

In the hours after the yen hit a 34-year low on Wednesday, Japanese officials put currency traders on notice: Keep this up, and we’ll act forcefully in the market to stem the slide, Bloomberg reported. The message was heeded, at least initially. After coming within a whisker of touching 152 per dollar — a level that a slew of market observers said would likely prompt authorities to intervene directly — the yen reversed course on warnings from Japan’s finance minister and then a news report that the nation’s economic authorities were gathering for an unscheduled meeting.

Rishi Sunak has denied there is a “crisis” in local government funding despite warnings that well-run councils are on the brink of bankruptcy and local services at risk without more support, The Guardian reported. The prime minister admitted that councils faced “challenges,” in particular with inflation, which has significantly outpaced recent cash injections, at the cross-party liaison committee.

Brazil's finance ministry unveiled on Tuesday its proposal to reduce the burden of states' debt to the federal government, conditioned upon allocating resources to technical high school education, Reuters reported. The move comes after several governors have requested lower charges, arguing that the amount paid in interest is excessively high and hampers investment.

According to an official statement from Esprit, the bankruptcy of the Swiss subsidiary and the closure of the branches were “unavoidable,” Swissinfo.ch reported. “Global economic development, combined with a sharp increase in energy and logistics costs as well as negative consumer sentiment and, last but not least, the high rents for our branches, ultimately made it impossible to continue our business,” Esprit Switzerland Retail said in a statement. The Swiss Esprit subsidiary’s over-indebtedness amounted to around CHF12 million at the end of 2023.