Headlines

Brazilian airline Gol said on Tuesday its restructuring plan under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings has been approved by a U.S. court, Reuters reported. The Brazilian carrier, which has been in bankruptcy proceedings since early 2024, told Reuters it expects to exit chapter 11 in June. Read more.

Builder.ai, one of the UK’s best-funded technology start-ups, is entering insolvency proceedings, weeks after restating its revenues and admitting “problems” under its past leadership, the Financial Times reported. The London-based group, which is backed by Microsoft, informed employees it was filing for bankruptcy during a company-wide call on Tuesday. The company confirmed that its main unit, Engineer.ai Corporation, “will be entering into insolvency proceedings and will appoint an administrator to manage the company’s affairs”.

China’s Hozon New Energy Automobile, the manufacturer of Neta-branded battery electric vehicles (BEVs), is the subject of a bankruptcy review case filed by a local advertising company, according to a notification on the country’s National Enterprise Bankruptcy Information Disclosure Platform, GlobalData.com reported. As the news spread rapidly across the local media, the struggling automaker has been forced to deny growing speculation that it had itself filed for bankruptcy.

Canada's big banks are expected to have shored up loan loss reserves in the second quarter, with four of the big six banks putting aside over C$1 billion to shield against potential loan defaults in a time of trade uncertainty, Reuters reported. Large loan loss provisions take away from earning potential, a problem the banks have faced in the past few years as a high interest rate environment made it increasingly more difficult for consumers and businesses to repay loans and borrow money.

Indonesia’s central bank has resumed its rate-cutting cycle as cooling inflation, slower growth and a steadier rupiah offer room to loosen policy settings, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank Indonesia on Wednesday cut its benchmark seven-day reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50%, breaking a streak of three consecutive holds. It also trimmed its annual growth forecast slightly, citing the impact of global uncertainty amid U.S. reciprocal tariffs. “Policy responses must be strengthened to boost growth,” Bank Indonesia Gov. Perry Warjiyo said at a press conference.

The U.S. International Trade Commission determined on Tuesday that domestic solar panel makers were materially harmed or threatened by a flood of cheap imports from four Southeast Asian nations, bringing the United States a step closer to imposing stiff duties on those goods, Reuters reported. The "yes" vote by the three-member ITC means the Commerce Department will issue orders to enforce countervailing and anti-dumping tariffs on solar products imported from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam that the agency finalized last month.

Asda is planning to sell about 20 supermarket stores for £400m to generate more cash for the business, The Telegraph reported. The supermarket chain is looking to offload the stores, which are located across the country, and lease them back for around 20 years. It has appointed property adviser Eastdil Secured to seek out buyers, according to property-focused publication Green Street News. Sale-and-leaseback deals are popular among major supermarkets as a means of raising capital to shore up their balance sheets.

The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation jumped further above the Bank of England’s target in April as businesses raised their prices in response to higher payroll taxes and increased utility charges, an expected move that will nonetheless reinforce the central bank’s caution, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices rose 3.5% in April compared with a year earlier, the highest rate of inflation since January 2024 and up from the 2.6% of March this year, the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics said Wednesday.

Consumer confidence in the European Union and the euro area staged a modest rebound in May, according to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, EuroNews.com reported. The flash estimate released on Tuesday showed the consumer sentiment indicator rising by 1.4 percentage points in both regions, following sharp declines in April.

Ardagh Group’s debt restructuring talks to a group of bondholders has broken down amid a standoff over how much Paul Coulson, the packaging giant’s leading shareholder, will continue to own in its improving drink cans business, the Irish Times reported. The heavily-indebted business proposed in March that a group of senior unsecured bondholders write off much of the $2.32 billion (€2.05 billion) they are owed in exchange for taking full ownership of the glass containers part of the business.