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Homelessness represents the "single biggest risk" to council finances and may cause effective bankruptcy, according to the organisation that represents London boroughs, BBC.com reported. London Councils, a cross party group that represents all 32 boroughs and the City of London, estimated that councils in the capital had been forced to overspend on their homelessness budgets by at least £330m in 2024-25. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide temporary accommodation to anyone who qualifies as homeless - the number of which has risen in recent years.

Nearly one-tenth more companies went insolvent in England and Wales in March than the same time last year, according to new figures, The Independent reported. The number of registered firms that went bust was 1,992 last month, according to the Insolvency Service, a 2% fall compared with February but a 9% increase compared with March 2024. Creditors’ voluntary liquidations (CVLs), when the directors of a company choose to close it down, made up the majority of the numbers, at 1,543, an 8% year-on-year rise.

Ukraine said Thursday that it failed to strike a deal to restructure $2.6 billion of debt securities, heightening its risk of default, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Ukraine’s finance ministry said it didn’t accept a proposal from a group of investors holding warrants linked to the country’s gross domestic product ahead of a payment due around the end of May. Ukraine intends to continue to engage with warrant holders and consider all available restructuring options, the finance ministry said.

In a major development for the National Capital Region’s (NCR) real estate market and offering much-needed relief to homebuyers, Max Estates Limited (Max Estates) has successfully taken over the long-stalled Delhi One project of Boulevard Projects Private Limited (BPPL) in Noida, InsolvencyTracker.in reported. The acquisition, finalized under the aegis of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), unlocks a substantial development potential of approximately 2.5 million sq. ft.

Hudson’s Bay Co. ULC, a company that’s so old it once played a central role for goods traders in Britain’s North American colonies, is being stripped for parts, Bloomberg News reported. The retailer, currently under bankruptcy protection in Canada, had devised a plan to rescue six of its 96 stores from liquidation, including its flagship location in one of the biggest shopping hot spots in downtown Toronto. But that plan has run aground and those locations are now being wound up too, and the company’s 17th-century artifacts are being auctioned off.

The Canadian economy faces short-term turbulence due to the fallout from President Trump’s trade policy, including the risk of tariff-fueled inflation, the country’s finance minister said Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said global policymakers are monitoring economic indicators closely for signs that U.S. trade policy is beginning to throttle growth. He added he would not predict whether Canada can avoid two straight quarters of negative growth, or the technical definition of a recession.

Japanese and U.S. finance chiefs meet on Thursday for high-stakes talks on exchange rates that have drawn market attention as a venue where Washington could pressure Tokyo to prop up the yen and help it reduce the huge U.S. trade deficit, Reuters reported. As the two countries proceed with separate bilateral talks on tariffs, the thorny currency rate topic has been set aside for Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss in Washington - the first face-to-face talks between the two. U.S.

The World Bank will grant Lebanon a $250 million loan that will be used to help ease electricity cuts in the crisis-hit country, the country's finance ministry said Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Lebanon has faced major electricity problems for decades, but the situation became worse following an economic meltdown that began in late 2019. The 14-month Israel-Hebzollah war that ended in late November also badly damaged electricity and other infrastructure in parts of Lebanon.

Canadian retail sales fell by 0.4% in February from January at C$69.33 billion ($49.95 billion), on lower sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Sales likely increased 0.7% in March, the agency said in a flash estimate, Reuters reported. In February, sales were down in four of nine subsectors, representing 43.1% of retail trade. In volume terms, retail sales decreased by 0.4%. Read more.

The head of the Swiss National Bank said on Friday that cryptocurrencies failed to meet the institution's currency reserve standards, rebuffing calls by crypto advocates that it hold bitcoin as a hedge against growing global economic risks, Reuters reported. Cryptocurrency campaigners are ramping up pressure on the SNB to buy bitcoin, arguing that the economic turmoil triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs made it more important for the central bank to diversify its reserves.