Headlines

Canada’s labor market continues to run slightly hotter than expected, with another solid month of hiring buoyed by rapid population growth and signs still-high wage growth has begun to cool, the Wall Street Journal reported. Employers added 40,700 jobs last month, though that wasn’t enough to prevent the unemployment rate from ticking up 0.1 percentage point to 5.8%, Statistics Canada reported Friday. The pace of hiring was the strongest in five months and beat market expectations for the addition of a modest 20,000 jobs.

The majority of North East councillors have agreed to accept Budget proposals aimed at saving the local authority from effective bankruptcy, the Northern Echo reported. The Full Middlesbrough Council met at the town hall on Friday to cast their vote on the plans which include the maximum council tax rise, along with a charge for green waste collection. They also agreed to accept exceptional financial support from the Government allowing the council to borrow £13.4m. The vote saw 25 councillors vote for the Budget plans and 16 against while five abstained.

The curators managing the VanMoof bankruptcy administration are in talks with a major financier of the e-bike brand about an agreement that would allow a group of disadvantaged customers to get their money back, NL Times reported. The lender promised VanMoof that customers who ordered bikes shortly before the bankruptcy would be compensated in the event the company went bust. This arrangement is for customers who ordered the SX4 and SA5 e-bike models, but never received them.

Argentina is starting a record swap of peso-denominated debt Monday in a bid to roll over almost all of its 2024 maturities into the next four years, providing a temporary respite to President Javier Milei’s government, Bloomberg News reported. The economy ministry published late Friday a list with the bonds it seeks to repurchase and sell, saying it will receive offers from investors until Tuesday 3 p.m. in Buenos Aires (2 p.m. ET). The swap may amount to 55 trillion pesos ($65 billion), according to Juan Manuel Truffa, partner and director at local consulting firm Outlier.

France wants to make it easier for private equity funds to invest in listed companies and less costly for finance firms to let go of traders, part of a new push to make Paris more appealing for financial services, a lawmaker said on Monday, Reuters reported. France has been trying to lure high-paying finance jobs to the French capital since Britain's 2016 vote to leave the European Union, and it has had some success. Between 2017 and 2022, more than 7,000 jobs were created in the sector, according to a draft of a new bill, which was released on Monday and will go to parliament next month.

European Central Bank officials are leaning against any immediate change in the amount of money lenders need to park with the institution interest-free, removing for now the threat of a hit to banking profitability the industry had been fretting over, Bloomberg News reported. Ahead of a crucial meeting on Wednesday on a revamp of the ECB’s framework for implementing monetary policy, a push by some hawks to increase the so-called Minimum Reserve Requirements, or MRR, from the current 1% has struggled to gain momentum.

The Australian government has announced it will abolish close to 500 “nuisance” tariffs from July 1, reducing the cost of importing everything from toothbrushes to roller coasters and bumper cars, the Wall Street Journal reported. Described by the center-left Labor government as the biggest unilateral tariff reform in at least two decades, removing the tariffs will cost the budget $19.9 million (30 million Australian dollars) in lost revenue annually, but help to streamline $5.6 billion (A$8.5 billion) in annual trade.

Brazilian farmer bankruptcy requests shot through the roof in 2023, according to a new survey from data services company Serasa Experian, reflecting higher business risks for global grain traders in one of the world's biggest food producers, the New Straits Times reported. According to Serasa's data released on Thursday, there were 127 farmer bankruptcy filings last year, up 53 per cent from the year before.

A €200 million ($218 million) loan to Signa’s flagship property unit has become a roadblock in attempts to sell off its assets and fund a restructuring, according to insolvency administrators, Bloomberg News reported. The loan from the Schoeller Group, controlled by one of Germany’s industrialist families, is one of the last cash injections Signa Prime Selection managed to secure in July 2023, before its insolvency in December.

Croatian hosiery producer Jadran Tvornica Carapa [ZSE:JDTC] has filed for bankruptcy at the commercial court in Zagreb over its failure to repay a debt of 167,000 euro ($183,000), the court said on Friday, SeeNews.com reported. The court has scheduled a hearing on March 27 to discuss the request to open bankruptcy proceedings against the debtor, according to a court decision submitted by Jadran to the Zagreb Stock Exchange. The company’s bank accounts have been blocked for 110 days.