Headlines

The number of bankruptcies in Brazil resumed rising this year after remaining stable throughout 2025. Last year, there were 2,732 bankrupt companies. With 66 new bankruptcy cases recorded in the first half of this year alone, the total climbed to 2,798, a 2.42% increase. The figures come from the RGF BizDoc Monitor, reviewed exclusively by ValorInternational.com. According to Cláudio Damasceno, senior partner at RGF, the trend coincides with a recent shift in case law at the Superior Court of Justice (STJ).

South Africa will hire advisers in the coming weeks to begin negotiations with lenders on a plan to spin off state-owned power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.’s transmission subsidiary, according to the head of the National Treasury, Bloomberg News reported. President Cyril Ramaphosa has endorsed the creation of an independent transmission system operator, or TSO, outside Eskom as part of efforts to open the electricity market to greater private-sector participation.

Zimbabwe has secured diplomatic backing from France and the United Kingdom for its debt resolution programme after the two countries agreed to co-chair a new Debt Consultative Group (DCG) under the country’s Structured Dialogue Platform, a development expected to accelerate engagement with international creditors and support efforts to restore access to concessional finance, The Zimbabwe Financial Mail reported.

India’s central bank held rates steady again on Wednesday, saying that the economy remains resilient in the face of pressure stemming from the conflict in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee voted unanimously to keep the repo rate at 5.25%, extending its pause to a fourth consecutive meeting. Renewed U.S.-Iran tensions are keeping central banks on guard as uncertainty swirls around efforts to restore traffic via the Strait of Hormuz—a key oil-shipping route.

Bank of Japan policymakers debated mounting ‌price risks that likely required more rate hikes even as they raised borrowing costs to a 31-year high in June, minutes of the meeting showed on Wednesday, highlighting the central bank's increased focus on broadening inflation, Reuters reported. A few board members said consumer inflation will likely ​get a significant boost in the latter half of the current fiscal year as firms plan price ​hikes for a wide range of goods, minutes of the June meeting showed.

Britain's two-year jobs market downturn has lasted as long as the slump seen during the global financial crisis as firms cut costs and turn to artificial intelligence, according to a closely watched survey, Bloomberg News reported. S&P's purchasing managers' index showed services firms and employers across the wider private sector reducing headcount for a 22nd straight month in July. While the pace of job losses eased slightly last month, the length of the downturn in the services sector now matches that seen during the 2008-09 financial crash.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is the world’s oldest bank. It has survived the rise and fall of the Medici, regional and world wars and its own near-death experiences — including a 5.4-billion-euro bailout in 2017 and a derivatives scandal that made the lender a byword for mismanagement. But under Luigi Lovaglio, the chief executive, who was recruited by the Italian government in 2022 to engineer a turnaround, Monte dei Paschi has grown into one of Europe’s healthiest financial institutions. Now, it’s a takeover target, the New York Times reported.

The company at the center of a Bitcoin hack has warned that artificial intelligence failed to detect the software flaw that was exploited to steal users' funds, now estimated at $130 million, Bloomberg News reported. Canada-based Coinkite Inc., whose affected Coldcard wallets were drained late last week, said the vulnerability the hackers discovered "is a warning for every company building Bitcoin hardware and software, not only us." Firms using AI to monitor security-critical code should undertake immediate reviews, Coinkite said in a blog post on its website.

Ryanair is being sued by hundreds of pilots who claim they are owed holiday pay, The Telegraph reported. Richard Phillips, a former Ryanair pilot, has filed a group claim against the low-cost airline along with 261 others. The lawsuit in London's Commercial Court, filed last week, also lists aviation recruitment agencies Storm Global and Brookfield Aviation International and a Dublin-based tax consultancy called Scanlon Associates as defendants.

The Mohegan Native American tribe spent $1.6 billion and almost a decade building a gambling venue near Seoul with three five-star hotels, a 15,000-seat arena and a water park so lavish that Netflix chose to film a hit dating show there, the New York Times reported. The Inspire Entertainment Resort was Mohegan’s first casino project outside North America, one designed to tap into a lucrative market of Chinese gamblers, who spent $28 billion on games in 2024 in Macau.