Headlines

The Iran war will push more than 15,000 additional companies into insolvency worldwide over the next two years, with Asia absorbing more than half the hit, Allianz Trade has warned in a sharp upgrade to its Middle East risk outlook, InsuranceBusinessMag.com reported. The trade credit insurer now sees global business failures rising 6% in 2026, a fifth straight annual increase, before plateauing at elevated levels in 2027. On its own reckoning, the conflict adds 7,000 cases next year and a further 7,900 in 2027 above what the insurer had assumed pre-crisis.

The Bank of Japan heads into its two-day policy meeting next week with the prospects for a rate increase dimming as economic uncertainties remain high due in part to the conflict in the Middle East, the Japan Times reported. “We expect that the BOJ will keep the policy rate steady,” UBS Securities economists Go Kurihara and Masamichi Adachi wrote in a report on Wednesday.

The chief of Europe’s securities regulator said the risks from and potential speed of cyberattacks are growing, ​joining a chorus of warnings from financial supervisors on the threats posed by artificial intelligence models that are evolving quickly, Reuters reported. Geopolitical tensions have ‌increased cybersecurity risks and the regulator has been contacting financial entities it supervises to assess their cybersecurity defences in light of recent developments in AI, Verena Ross, chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, said in an interview in Paris.

French payments firm Ingenico, backed by Apollo Global Management, has started debt talks with creditors as it struggles to keep up with its interest bill, Bloomberg News reported. The company is working with Rothschild as a financial adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Holders of the firm’s €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) term loans, led by Pacific Investment Management Co., are being advised by investment bank Houlihan Lokey and law firm Gibson Dunn.

Retail sales rose 0.7 per cent to $72.1 billion in February as sales at new and used car dealers climbed, Statistics Canada said Friday, the Canadian Press reported. TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva said consumers delivered another solid month in February, with early indications pointing to continued strength in March. Looking ahead, Statistics Canada said its advance estimate of overall retail sales for March pointed to a gain of 0.6 per cent, though it cautioned the figure would be revised.

A global wave of mergers and acquisitions is looming among private equity-backed data-centre companies as their debt burdens become unmanageable, said Greg Goodman, chief executive of Australian industrial property giant Goodman Group, Bloomberg News reported. Goodman Group, which started out with a single industrial building in Sydney in the 1990s, is making a hard pivot to data centres, building out a global network of sites stretching from Los Angeles and Paris to Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Japan will set up a task force to address cybersecurity risks in its financial ​system following concerns about potential vulnerabilities linked to ‌Anthropic's Mythos AI model, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Friday, Reuters reported. The decision was agreed at a meeting involving the Financial ​Services Agency, the Bank of Japan, the National ​Cybersecurity Office, the country's top three banks and ⁠Japan Exchange Group, Katayama told reporters.

The Philippine central bank raised rates in a preemptive move against rising inflation risks driven by the Middle East conflict, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decision reflect a dilemma facing many central banks: tighten policy now to curb energy-driven inflation at the cost of economic growth, or wait and risk falling behind. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas raised its benchmark overnight reverse repurchase rate to 4.50% from 4.25%, breaking from most peers in Asia. It also raised its benchmark lending rate to 5.00% from 4.75%.

When you’re getting a 20.75% yield on a bond, you mustn’t expect all smooth sailing. Shapoorji Pallonji Group, India’s biggest private credit borrower and issuer of one of its largest-ever junk bonds, has just reinforced that point. Holders of a high-yield note issued by a unit of the infrastructure conglomerate unanimously agreed to let the company delay paying principal and interest to June 30. Bondholders of the note issued by Goswami Infratech Pvt. received a 25 basis points consent fee for agreeing to push back the maturity from the April 30 deadline.

German business confidence sank to a near six-year low as firms counted the cost of soaring energy prices driven by the conflict in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Ifo Institute said Friday that its business-climate index, based on around 9,000 monthly responses from businesses, fell to 84.4 in April from 86.3 in March. That marked the lowest level since May 2020, when lockdowns and restrictions hit businesses as the Covid-19 pandemic spread worldwide.