Headlines

The swelling protests against severe pandemic restrictions in China — the world’s second-largest economy — are injecting a new element of uncertainty and instability into the global economy when nations are already struggling to manage the fallout from a war in Ukraine, an energy crisis and painful inflation, the New York Times reported. For years, China has served as the world’s factory and a vital engine of global growth, and turmoil there cannot help but ripple elsewhere.

South Africa's unreliable power supply and its high level of government debt are two of the main risks to its financial stability, the country's central bank said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Africa's most developed economy has seen 170 days of rolling blackouts this year due to a maintenance backlog of state utility Eskom's ageing coal-fired power plants. This has not only hit corporate productivity but also hurt investor sentiment, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) said in its biannual health check of the financial system.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP missed multiple red flags when it audited the financial statements of Carillion PLC, the liquidators of the defunct construction and outsourcing firm said, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.K. government officials sued KPMG seeking in January £1.3 billion—equivalent to around $1.55 billion—and claiming the audit firm failed to spot misstatements that would have led the company’s management to take different actions.

Canada's economy performed much better than expected in the third quarter, but an early indication that growth stalled in the fourth quarter could prompt the Bank of Canada next week to slow its campaign to hike interest rates, Reuters reported. Canada's economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.9% in the third quarter, above expectations, while GDP most likely was unchanged in October after a 0.1% gain in September, Statistics Canada data showed on Tuesday. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected third-quarter annualized growth of 1.5% and a gain of 0.1% in September.

Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron on Tuesday warned lawmakers not to interfere with monetary policy decisions, and said the "magic solutions" they proposed to blunt the impact of interest rate hikes would hurt the weakest sectors of the economy, Reuters reported. Yaron's comments appeared to be a response to the head of the Israeli parliament's powerful finance committee, Moshe Gafni, who on Monday criticised a wave of central bank interest hikes and proposed legislation to shield mortgages from rate increases.

Singapore’s government faces increased scrutiny over the fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minster Lawrence Wong face a raft of parliamentary questions this week over the losses incurred by retail investors and the due diligence undertaken by state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte, which wrote down its entire $275 million investment in FTX. The FTX exchange collapsed into bankruptcy on Nov.

China Evergrande Group said on Monday its unit has entered into a deal to sell a piece of commercial land in Shenzhen for 7.54 billion yuan ($1.05 billion), as the embattled property developer looks to shave off its massive debt, Reuters reported. Evergrande, which has about $300 billion in liabilities, has been at the centre of a deepening property debt crisis in China that has seen multiple developers defaulting on their offshore debt obligations over the past year, prompting many to consider debt restructuring.

Adler Group SA shares jumped as much as 64% after the landlord agreed an expensive deal with creditors to extend debt maturities and postpone publication of audited accounts, Bloomberg News reported. Despite Monday’s record gain, the company’s shares have still lost almost three quarters of their value this year after a damning short report published by Viceroy Research in October 2021 accused the company of being run for the benefit of tycoon Cevdet Caner.

German car supplier Ruester GmbH said that it has filed for restructuring in self-administration, a special form of insolvency proceedings that give the owners bigger say, citing liquidity problems partly caused by higher energy costs, Reuters reported. As part of the proceedings, Ruester, which makes annual sales of around 120 million euros ($125 million) and made two acquisitions in 2022, will look for a buyer as a way to keep the company afloat, it said.

The Canadian Labour Congress is welcoming new legislation protecting workers’ pensions in case their employer declares bankruptcy or insolvency, HRReporter.com reported. “For decades we have seen companies pay out creditors, even pay out bonuses to executives, after declaring bankruptcy, while workers wait at the back of the line. We are glad to finally see workers being prioritized over banks and CEOs in bankruptcies situations,” says Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).