Headlines

The largest commercial shipping companies continue to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal, despite a recent cease-fire agreement between the United States and Houthis intended to make the trade lanes safer, the New York Times reported. Ship traffic through the Red Sea is down by around three-fifths since 2023 when the Houthis started targeting ships there in solidarity with Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza, said Richard Meade, editor in chief of Lloyd’s List, a shipping publication.

Builder.ai filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. after creditors seized most of the cash in the British startup’s bank accounts, Bloomberg News reported. The company published a list of creditors in a chapter 7 case in a Delaware bankruptcy court, Builder.ai said in a filing dated June 2. Read more. (Subscription required.)

A liquidator has been appointed for the bankrupt charity that ran two public leisure centres in Lincoln, BBC.com reported. Yarborough and Birchwood leisure centres closed on 3 April after Active Nation ceased trading. Stockport-based firm Beesley Corporate Recovery has been appointed to handle the charity's insolvency process. Both facilities are expected to fully reopen by mid-July after City of Lincoln Council, which owns the buildings, chose charitable social enterprise Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) as the interim operator for them.

Builder's merchant Blanchford Building Supplies racked up debts of more than £3.3million to suppliers before it fell into administration, YahooNews.com reported. The 75-year-old Headington-based business closed down ‘without warning’ earlier this year without giving any reason. All four of Blanchford's shops in Bicester, Wallingford, Princes Risborough and Haddenham closed on February 14. Timothy Townley and Danny Dartnaill, of business restructuring specialist BDO LLP, were appointed as joint administrators in mid-February.

The commercial court in Zagreb has scheduled a hearing for July 1 to decide on a proposal to open bankruptcy proceedings against media leasing and planning company Unex Media, SeeNews.com reported. The company has flied for bankruptcy on May 26, the court said on Wednesday. The company’s account has been blocked since February 11 and its debt as of June 4 amounts to 2.07 million euro.

China’s electric vehicle (EV) makers have had a lot to contend with over the past week: slumping shares for market leader BYD, cooling sales and margins and a warning from authorities in Beijing amid a punishing price war, the South China Morning Post reported. BYD’s Hong Kong-listed shares lost as much as 17 per cent of their market value, or HK$122.3 billion (US$15.6 billion), on Monday after falling to HK$378.20 from an all-time high of HK$477.80 on May 23. The company’s shares recovered 4 per cent on Tuesday.

The European Central Bank cut interest rates as expected on Thursday and said it believed it was now well-positioned to cope with global economic uncertainty, as market bets grew on a summer pause in its year-long easing cycle, Reuters reported. The ECB has now lowered borrowing costs eight times, or by 2 percentage points since last June, seeking to prop up a euro zone economy that was struggling even before erratic U.S. economic and trade policies dealt it further blows.

Canada prepared possible reprisals while the European Union reported progress in trade talks on Wednesday as new U.S. metals tariffs triggered more disruption in the global economy and added urgency to negotiations with Washington, Reuters reported. President Donald Trump's doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports kicked in on Wednesday, the same day his administration sought "best offers" from trading partners to avoid other punishing import levies from taking effect in July. The move will hit the closest U.S. trading partners - Canada and Mexico - especially hard.

The Bank of Canada left its main interest rate unchanged, at 2.75%, saying the economy has softened but not deteriorated, and inflation has picked up steam, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of Canada Gov. Tiff Macklem said officials expect second-quarter economic growth to be “much weaker” after a surprise 2.2% annualized increase in the first quarter that was buoyed by exports and inventories as companies rushed to purchase goods to avoid tariffs.

Few British businesses now expect to be directly affected by recent changes in U.S. trade policy, with only 12% naming it as one of their top three sources of uncertainty, down from 22% a month earlier, a Bank of England survey showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. U.S. President Donald Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs on imports to the United States in early April. Britain secured a partial exemption from the tariffs in early May, although the details are still to be finalised. The BoE said 70% of businesses surveyed in May as part of its monthly Decision Maker Panel expected that U.S.