Headlines

Creditors of Austrian motorbike maker KTM AG approved a restructuring plan that will write off 70% of the company’s debt and resume production with the help of new investments, Bloomberg News reported. KTM will need to secure €548 million ($575 million) of funding by May 23 to pay creditors, according to the plan that was approved on Tuesday by a majority of creditors. An extended circle of shareholders will provide additional financing to resume production, the company’s parent, Pierer Mobility, said in a statement. Share of Pierer Mobility rallied 11% in Zurich after the announcement.

U.S. carmaker Tesla will acquire parts of the insolvent German high-tech parts maker Manz AG , including more than 300 employees at its site in Reutlingen city in the southwest, the German company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The deal marks a wider presence by Tesla in Germany, where it runs a manufacturing site near Berlin, even after CEO Elon Musk endorsed the far-right party AfD, which mainstream parties have refused to work with due to its extreme positions. Tesla sold almost 60% fewer cars in Germany in January than a year earlier, as the U.S.

Germany’s economy contracted in the final quarter of 2024, the country’s statistics agency confirmed Tuesday, underlining the scale of the challenge for the next German government to turn around its economic fortunes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Europe’s largest economy shrank 0.2% in the three months to the end of December, matching a prior estimate published in January, the agency Destatis said. The country’s economy contracted for a second year in a row in 2024, also by 0.2%.

Wages in the eurozone rose at a slower pace during the three months through December as the economy stalled, paving the way for further reductions in the European Central Bank’s key interest rate, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB on Tuesday said wages set through negotiations between employers and labor unions or similar bodies were 4.12% higher in the fourth quarter of 2024 than a year earlier, a slowdown from the 5.43% increase recorded in the three months through September.

Hungary left its key interest rate unchanged for a fifth month after accelerating inflation bolstered policymakers’ bias against monetary easing in the months ahead, Bloomberg News reported. The National Bank of Hungary kept the benchmark at 6.5% on Tuesday at the last policy meeting that was chaired by Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy. The decision matched all 23 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. Annual price growth accelerated to a 13-month high of 5.5% in January, underscoring concerns that inflation expectations may stabilize at higher-than-thought levels.

South Korea’s central bank cut its base rate and lowered its growth forecast for this year, as it resumed easing to support a sagging economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy remains weak, with exports weighed by President Trump’s tariff policy and a rise in global trade protectionism. The economy is also hindered by sluggish domestic demand and weak consumer spending amid political turmoil over President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment trial.

The global debt-to-GDP ratio rose for the first time since 2020 last year, as the world's debt stock hit a new year-end record of $318 trillion and economic growth slowed, an Institute of International Finance report showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The $7 trillion rise in global debt was less than half of the 2023 increase, when expectations of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts sparked a borrowing surge. The IIF warned, however, that so-called bond vigilantes could punish governments if rising fiscal deficits persist.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei warned Telefonica SA that his government will review the phone carrier’s plan to sell its local operations to Telecom Argentina SA for a possible breach of anti-monopoly rules, Bloomberg News reported. Telefonica signed and closed the $1.25 billion deal on Monday after more than three decades in the country, according to a regulatory filing. The Spanish carrier has been working since late 2019 to cut its exposure to Latin America.

President Donald Trump said he expected tariffs planned to take effect on Canada and Mexico to go ahead next month following an initial delay to allow the countries more time to address his concerns over border security, Bloomberg News reported. “The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule,” Trump said Monday from the White House during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump was asked if the tariffs, which he delayed until March 4, would go into effect.

Insolvency cases initiated by operational creditors, such as raw material suppliers and vendors, have crashed to their lowest this fiscal year, signalling their growing preference for faster out-of-court settlements with defaulters, Indian officials and experts said, the Economic Times of India reported. The number of insolvency cases admitted by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on applications filed by operational creditors plunged 41% to 187 until December this fiscal from 316 a year before, showed the data compiled by the bankruptcy regulator.