Headlines

The number of UK businesses entering insolvency-related processes fell in the second quarter of 2026 but a decline in new company registrations suggests business confidence remains subdued.The findings have been published in a report by R3, the trade association for the UK’s insolvency, restructuring, advisory, and turnaround professionals. The quarterly Business Health report, based on data from Creditsafe, found there were 6,854 insolvency-related activities in Q2 2026, down 6% compared to the same period last year and 5% lower than the previous quarter.

Bending Spoons entered into a new €500 million medium-long-term financing provided by HSBC Continental Europe (acting as sole coordinator and MLA), Intesa Sanpaolo (acting as SACE agent and MLA), and BPER Banca Corporate & Investment Banking (acting as structuring advisor and MLA), ABFJournal.com reported. The facility, which matures in March 2031, benefits from a guarantee provided by SACE, in advancement of SACE’s mission to support the international growth of Italian businesses.

Japan and South Korea both stepped in to buy their currencies on Thursday, sources and analysts said, while signs of U.S. support grew on Friday in a rare coordinated intervention that marks an escalation in efforts to stem currency weakness, Reuters reported. The ‌intervention gave the yen its biggest boost in almost two years and, if the past is any guide, any joint effort with the U.S. may prove ‌strong enough to turn around the battered currency. Japan conducted its yen-buying intervention in New York hours on Thursday, a market source told Reuters.

Tokyo’s inflation pace has quickened for a second month, keeping the Bank of Japan on track to raise interest rates again in coming months, after the board stood pat on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index (CPI) excluding fresh food rose 1.9% in July from a year earlier in the capital, the internal affairs ministry reported on Friday. A gauge that excludes both fresh food and energy — closely watched by the BOJ as a gauge of underlying inflation — gained 2%, while overall consumer prices also rose 2%.

Mexico’s economic activity expanded in the second quarter in a broad-based recovery after a weak start to the year, helped in part by the country’s co-hosting of the 2026 soccer World Cup, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product, a measure of output in goods and services, rose 1.5% from the previous quarter in seasonally adjusted terms, national statistics institute Inegi said on Thursday. Industrial production rose 1.6%, services increased 1.5% and agricultural production was up 3.3%.

Euro zone inflation rose to 2.9 per cent in July, bolstering the case for the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates again in September to contain the price pressures unleashed by the war in the Middle East, the Irish Times reported. Friday’s flash estimate, which was in line with economists’ forecasts in a Reuters poll, was up from 2.8 per cent in June, reflecting the renewed rise in fuel and natural gas prices. It marked the fifth consecutive month that price growth in the 21-country bloc has exceeded the ECB’s medium-term target of 2 per cent.

The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold on Thursday as it waits for a keener sense of how much the U.S.-Iran war will push up inflation, although the collapse of a tentative truce prompted a third policymaker to back a rate hike, Reuters reported. The Monetary Policy Committee ‌voted 6-3 to keep rates at 3.75% rather than the 7-2 split most economists polled by Reuters had expected. Catherine Mann joined Megan Greene and Chief Economist Huw Pill in voting ‌for a rise to 4%.

Germany’s automakers are struggling under the weight of American tariffs, Chinese competition and a rocky transition to electric vehicles, the New York Times reported. The gravity of the situation became clear this summer as Volkswagen executives discussed closing factories, canceling models and culling tens of thousands of jobs. The crisis raises questions about whether the German approach of balancing profits with job security by, among other things, giving workers a strong voice in management is capable of adapting to breathtaking technological change.

China's factory activity unexpectedly slowed in July, the first such contraction in five months, weighing on the pace of broader growth for the world's second-largest economy, the Associated Press reported. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index, or PMI, fell to 49.2 from 50.3 in June, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Friday, worse than what economists had expected. The sub-index on new orders fell to 48.5 in July — the lowest since 2023 — from 51.2 in June, while the sub-index for production fell to 49.9 from 51.4.

Labor has accused the Tasmanian government of lending $20 million to Liberty Bell Bay despite receiving a report weeks earlier showing the manganese smelter was likely insolvent, PulseTasmania.com.au reported. Deputy Labor leader Janie Finlay said the state and Commonwealth governments were given the financial information around June 24, 2025, before the loan was announced on August 18, 2025. “On or around the 24th of June 2025, both the Commonwealth and the state governments were provided information that demonstrated that Liberty Bell Bay were insolvent,” she said.