Headlines

The ongoing struggles faced by Quebec-based Taiga Motors as it tries to become an electric snowmobile and personal watercraft pioneer hit another snag when the company filed for the equivalent of bankruptcy protection in Canada, Power Sports Business reported. The June 10, 2024, filing under the Canadian Companies Creditors Arrangement Act is similar to a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the U.S., so the company is seeking protection from creditors while continuing its operations and operating under its court-appointed trustee, Deloitte Restructuring Inc.

A recent string of dismal indicators have dulled expectations for China's economic performance in July, in an ominous sign for the rest of 2024 and pointing to the need for more stimulus measures beyond plastering over pain points in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. Calls for more growth boosting measures for the $19 trillion economy have dogged officials after a widely expected post-pandemic recovery failed to materialize in 2023. Still, the government is targeting economic growth of around 5% this year. The latest data point to a rocky start to the second half.

Troubled Chilean salmon-farming company Nova Austral appears to have been given the go-ahead to continue with its reorganization, Fish Farmer Magazine reported. Following a new appeal by the company and other organizations, a court in the south of the country has permanently reversed a bankruptcy order. A temporary appeal was allowed in May. This means a long running saga, and a series of delays which saw the business come close to being wound up or sold, should at last be over.

India's Pipavav Shipyard is scheduled to resume its business operations under a new management team and after emerging from bankruptcy, Baird Maritime reported. The yard's first project after reopening will be the repair of an Indian Coast Guard vessel. Also, discussions with an undisclosed shipping company are ongoing with the aim of finalizing contracts for the construction of new large bulk carriers. Pipavav Shipyard is now majority co-owned by Mumbai-based Swan Energy through a special purpose vehicle (SPV), which acquired the shipyard.

A former investment firm director has been handed stringent bankruptcy restrictions extended to the maximum of 15 years “to prevent him causing further harm to the public,” the U.K.’s Insolvency Service said in a statement on 12 August, the International Adviser reported. Derby-based Andrew Paul Bird defrauded 13 different parties in an investment scam between 2011 and 2016. The Official Receiver discovered he had knowingly misled investors and exposed them to the risk of losing money for his personal gain, the statement said.

British consumer price inflation increased for the first time this year in July, official figures showed on Wednesday, but the rise was smaller than expected as services prices — closely watched by the Bank of England — rose less rapidly, Reuters reported. The annual rate of consumer price inflation increased to 2.2% after two months at the Bank of England's 2% target, the Office for National Statistics said, coming in slightly below the median 2.3% forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. Sterling fell sharply against the U.S.

India's top court on Wednesday revived insolvency proceedings against education technology company Byju's following a lawsuit by a trust representing U.S. lenders who say they are owed $1 billion by the company, Reuters reported. The Supreme Court order is a setback for founder Byju Raveendran whose eponymous online coaching company was valued at $22 billion in 2022 before suffering setbacks including boardroom exits, an auditor resignation, and a public spat with foreign investors over alleged mismanagement. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

Japan’s economy rebounded to growth in the second quarter on the back of an increase in private consumption, in a sign that a virtuous cycle long sought by the central bank linking rising incomes to increased spending may be starting to emerge, Bloomberg reported. Gross domestic product expanded at an annualized pace of 3.1% in the three months through June versus the prior period, the Cabinet Office reported Thursday. The reading, which exceeded the 2.3% consensus estimate, came after the economy contracted by a revised 2.3% in the first quarter.

UBS on Tuesday agreed to sell Credit Suisse's U.S. mortgage servicing business, UBS Chief Financial Officer Todd Tuckner said on Wednesday, without naming the buyer, Reuters reported. Tuckner, who was speaking on a call with analysts following publication of the bank's latest results, said the transaction was expected to close in the first quarter of next year. UBS executives declined to name the buyer on a media call later, though CEO Sergio Ermotti said it was a consortium. "That's the only thing we can say, and it's up to them to communicate," he added.

The world’s biggest steel producer sounded the alarm about an industry crisis in China that carries the potential to ripple around the globe and plunge the sector into a deeper downturn, Bloomberg reported. Conditions in China’s steel sector are like a “harsh winter” that will be “longer, colder and more difficult to endure than we expected,” China Baowu Steel Group Corp. chairman Hu Wangming told staff at the company’s half-year meeting, warning of a worse challenge than major traumas in 2008 and 2015.