Headlines

The chairman ‌of Spanish defence firm Indra, Angel Escribano, submitted his resignation on Wednesday, saying that staying on could "jeopardise the company’s stability" following a recent failed deal with his own company, Reuters reported. Indra said in a ​statement it had initiated the succession process, but did not give any further details. Indra ​shares went on a roller-coaster ride during the day after several news ⁠outlets reported Escribano was about to resign, but ended 3% higher.

A controversial $1.3 billion acquisition of a luxury vineyard at the top of a mountain between Los Angeles and the Napa Valley in California is threatening to upend Australian winemaking giant Treasury Wine Estates, The Nightly reported. Shares in the ASX-listed winemaker behind the iconic Penfolds Grange, Wolf Blass, Lindeman’s and Wynns brands have sunk 63 per cent over the past year, as hedge funds lift bets its $1.9 billion debt pile spells more trouble ahead.

India’s Parliament passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, 2026, with the Rajya Sabha approving it Wednesday with a voice vote, News On Air reported. Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Harsh Malhotra moved the Bill, which aims to further amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. The Bill also seeks to address procedural delays and interpretational issues among companies and individuals.

Amendments to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) expand the scrutiny over pre-bankruptcy transactions of distressed companies to cover a longer period, finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday in Rajya Sabha, livemint.com reported. The upper house of parliament returned the amendment bill that was cleared by Lok Sabha on Monday.

For more than a decade, Japanese home builders have been tiptoeing into the U.S. housing market with small, discreet acquisitions of private American construction companies, the Wall Street Journal reported. Their quiet era is over. Japanese builders have announced or closed acquisitions of 23 U.S. single-family home builders since 2020, more than double the number from 2013 to 2019. That doesn’t include the multifamily developers and construction-supply companies they have also bought. By some estimates, Japanese builders are now set to own about 6% of the U.S. home-construction market.

The Bank of England said on Wednesday that the Iran war had dealt "a substantial negative supply shock" to the world economy, increasing the danger that pre-existing threats to financial stability materialize, Reuters reported. The ​BoE said the prospect of weaker growth and higher inflation and borrowing costs raised the chance of ‌risks crystallising simultaneously in government debt markets, private credit and the valuations of U.S. tech giants. "The conflict has made the global environment materially more unpredictable and followed a period in which global risks were already elevated.

By the time Laura Pelletier took out a two-week loan in November at an equivalent annualized interest rate above 1,800%, she was already deep in debt, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Pelletier lives in Ottawa, but almost none of the lenders she used were licensed in her home province of Ontario, and the cost of the loans far surpassed what was allowed by regulators. Soon, the only way to keep current on one debt was to take out another. Over the course of two months she borrowed just under C$12,600 from 22 different unlicensed lenders, and owed them almost C$21,000.

The Bank of Canada's governing council has agreed it will have to rely on its own judgment more ​than usual on rate decisions, given heightened global uncertainty, according to minutes ‌released on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 2.25% on March 18 and Governor Tiff Macklem said the governing council would look through the Iran war's immediate impact ​on inflation but would respond if inflation became persistent. The Iran war sent ​benchmark crude oil prices soaring and fanned concerns of a broader ⁠spike in inflation.

Colombia faces mounting uncertainty ‌after the government's decision to withdraw from the central bank's board cast doubt on future decisions following a 100-basis-point interest rate hike, analysts warned on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Finance Minister German Avila, the government's representative on the central bank board, announced his withdrawal from the ​body on Tuesday with the support of President Gustavo Petro. The move followed the board's decision to raise ​the benchmark interest rate to 11.25% in a split 4-2-1 vote.

Global shipping has a new problem: Not only has Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz trapped thousands of ships in and around the Persian Gulf, it also has choked off the supply of oil they use to sail around the planet, the Wall Street Journal reported. Singapore, the world’s biggest ship-refueling hub, is running low on bunker fuel as imports from Kuwait have dried up, according to data from oil platform Vortexa. In the week of March 2, the first week of the war in Iran, 140,000 barrels a day of ship fuel arrived in Singapore, with 98% coming from Kuwait.