Headlines

After the U.S. dropped a broad array of sanctions against Venezuela in October, it warned that it could reimpose all of them, except one. The White House admitted that its ban on buying Venezuelan bonds was a failure that had potentially benefited enemies of the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. Behind the scenes, a group of powerful Wall Street investors had been feeding Washington a stream of evidence that showed Venezuelan bonds were being traded by investors with ties to Russia. They said Moscow was hoping to gain influence in the U.S.’s backyard.

The chief executive officer of Castellum AB warned that the rental market will weaken more as the Swedish landlord reported that the value of newly signed contracts was lower than terminated leases in the fourth quarter, Bloomberg News reported. “The property industry has a tough year behind it, and we should expect a weaker rental market going forward,” CEO Joacim Sjoberg said in the company’s earnings report, cautioning that more tenants — consisting of Swedish businesses and the public sector — may be impacted by a waning economy.

The Bank of Canada is likely to wrap up its quantitative tightening program as early as April, sooner than policymakers had previously indicated, according to RBC Capital Markets strategists, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank under Governor Tiff Macklem has been shrinking its balance sheet for about two years, withdrawing the extraordinary stimulus it provided during the worse phase of the Covid-19 shock.

Canadian home sales rose for the second month, with buyers rushing back into the market as speculation builds that prices will rise if the Bank of Canada lowers interest rates later this year, Bloomberg News reported. The number of homes that traded hands rose 3.7% in January from the month before, according to data Wednesday from the Canadian Real Estate Association. Prices continued to soften, with the seasonally adjusted benchmark falling 1.2% to C$717,800 ($529,500), the fifth straight monthly decline.

Visa said on Wednesday that the Reserve Bank of India, which is also the country's financial market regulator, had directed it last week to halt all domestic transactions for business payment solution providers (BPSPs), Reuters reported. BPSPs facilitate business-to-business card payments made to non-card-accepting vendors or suppliers. The RBI's directive will not impact all commercial card payments but only those intermediated by BPSPs. Visa, the world's largest payments processor, did not say why the RBI has issued the directive.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said that it had formally launched a new trust fund to help support Ukraine's economic and financial reforms over the next five years, with a goal to raise $65 million from donor countries, Reuters reported. The Ukraine Capacity Development Fund was launched in Kyiv with initial resources of $16.5 million provided by the Netherlands, Slovakia, Latvia, Japan and Lithuania.

Zambia's central bank raised its benchmark lending rate for the fifth meeting in a row, it said on Wednesday, citing a further deterioration in the inflation outlook, Reuters reported. The bank raised its policy rate by 150 basis points to 12.5%. Inflation in the southern African country rose to 13.2% year-on-year in January from 13.1% in December, moving further away from the bank's 6%-8% target band. Inflation is expected to average 12.5% this year, Bank of Zambia Governor Denny Kalyalya told reporters.

The British business of the Body Shop has collapsed into administration, putting 2,000 jobs at risk at the one-time pioneering ethical cosmetics retailer, Reuters reported. Founded in Brighton, southern England, in 1976 by late environmentalist and human rights activist Anita Roddick, the Body Shop was famous for promoting natural, ethically-sourced products and rejecting animal testing.

The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted Sporta Technologies, which owns India’s largest fantasy sports platform Dream11, under the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) on an application filed by the resolution professional of Reward Solutions, the Economic Times of India reported. The tribunal appointed Madan Bajrang Lal Vaishnawa as the interim resolution professional to conduct the insolvency resolution process.

Bankrupt Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA won court permission to investigate whether its rival Latam Airlines Group SA sought to take unfair advantage of its recent chapter 11 filing by improperly soliciting major Boeing Co. aircraft suppliers, Bloomberg News reported. Judge Martin Glenn said Monday there is merit in investigating allegations Latam tried to either poach or interfere with Boeing 737 aircraft lessors doing business with Gol after the Brazilian budget airline filed bankruptcy last month.