Headlines

Pakistan’s cash-strapped government on Friday presented its draft for the national budget, allocating funds to fight climate change despite staggering $30 billion in losses from last summer's devastating floods, the Associated Press reported. Lawmakers are expected to approve the proposal by the end of the month, after a clause-by-clause discussion. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif's government, which succeeded that of former Premier Imran Khan, has struggled with an unprecedented economic downturn since taking over last year.

Italy's biggest telecoms company Telecom Italia (TIM) said on Friday it received two new offers for its landline grid, as companies bid to resolve the impasse over the asset's sale process, Reuters reported. U.S. fund KKR and separately a rival consortium comprising state lender CDP and Australian fund Macquarie submitted bids for Telecom Italia's network, according to a statement. Debt-crippled TIM is seeking improved offers for its most valuable asset after having assessed as not yet adequate the proposals received in May.

The Foschini Group Ltd.’s turnaround of South African discount clothing chain Jet is grabbing the attention of a larger rival as competition for the lower end of the market intensifies, Bloomberg News reported. TFG, which acquired Jet three years ago, has refurbished the stores, revitalized the chain’s supply base and added its home-furnishing brand — Jet Home — to 78 of the almost 464 outlets across the country. Jet’s former owner, Edcon Holdings Ltd., was teetering on bankruptcy and didn’t spend on expansion, said TFG Chief Executive Officer Anthony Thunström.

Peru's central bank expects inflation to converge to its target in 2024, not the end of this year as previously estimated, the bank's manager for economic studies Adrian Armas said on Friday, Reuters reported. The monetary authority's inflation target is between 1% and 3%. At a press conference, Armas attributed the revised forecast to inflationary pressures on food prices. Peru's annual inflation rate slowed to 7.89% in May.

A panel that reviews disputes in the credit default swaps (CDS) market said on Friday that a 'failure to pay' credit event had not occurred in relation to Casino Guichard Perrachon, dashing investors' hopes for a payout on the company's CDS, Reuters reported. The EMEA Credit Derivatives Determination Committee (CDDC) met on Thursday to discuss the question raised by an investor, it said on its website. The French retailer had announced on May 26 it entered court-backed talks with creditors in a process known as conciliation.

Japan's wholesale inflation slowed for a fifth consecutive month in May because of sliding fuel and commodity prices, data showed on Monday, a sign cost-push pressure that has driven up consumer inflation may be subsiding, Reuters reported. The data underscores the central bank's view that consumer inflation will slow in coming months as global commodity prices slide from last year's peak levels.

Egyptian inflation accelerated after a monthlong respite, as a round of price increases by authorities fans pressures already building following three currency devaluations, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in urban parts of Egypt climbed an annual 32.7% in May from 30.6% the previous month, according to a statement Saturday from the state-run statistics agency CAPMAS. Food and beverage costs, the largest single component of the inflation basket, rose 60%.

A Yorkshire-based finance boss has been found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court, according to a U.K. Insolvency Service press release. An investigation by the Insolvency Service found Liam Francis Wainwright, 61, from Leeds, had falsified documents to mislead investors and spend their money on ventures including a racehorse syndicate and his own failed private businesses. These investors were victims of a classic Ponzi scheme, whereby the returns paid to them were funded by the capital injections from later investors.

The Daily Telegraph, a more than 150-year-old, politically influential British newspaper, has effectively been put up for sale after its parent company entered a form of insolvency proceedings, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move could offer a rare chance to buy a trophy asset with strong ties to the ruling Conservative Party, while signaling the further erosion of the business empire of the Barclay family, once one of Britain’s richest clans.

A London commuter town effectively declared bankruptcy, after a risky investment spree meant to offset a central government funding squeeze backfired and left the local authority — which covers a population of just over 100,000 people — facing a £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) deficit, Bloomberg News reported. Woking Borough Council issued a so-called Section 114 notice on Wednesday, meaning that all but essential spending will stop due to the financial shortfall, which it blamed on “unaffordable borrowing” triggered by historic spending.