Headlines

Nuvoco Vistas Corp, a key producer of cement in East India, has emerged as the successful applicant to buy Vadraj Cement under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process, the Economic Times of India reported. Gujarat-based Vadraj Cement, formerly owned by ABG Shipyard, has a 6 million tonne grinding unit in Surat and will add to Nuvoco Vistas’ existing production capacity of 25 million tonne by more than 20%. Vadraj Cement also has a clinker capacity of 3.5 million tonne in Kutch in Gujarat along with limestone reserves and a captive jetty.

Country Garden Holdings Co.’s sales slump continued in December even as the Chinese property market showed signs of stabilization after the government’s stimulus packages, Bloomberg News reported. Contracted sales declined 51% from a year earlier to 3.42 billion yuan ($467 million), narrowing from a 52% year-on-year drop in November, Bloomberg calculations based on corporate filings show. The developer’s home sales have cratered from 22 billion yuan in December 2022. China’s residential property market has shown gradual signs of stabilization after a government stimulus blitz.

The U.K.’s long-term borrowing costs surged to the highest level in more than a quarter of a century, raising the prospect of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves needing to raise taxes again in order to meet her fiscal rules, Bloomberg News reported. The yield on 30-year gilts climbed four basis points to 5.22% on Tuesday after the first of a string of bond sales due over the coming weeks.

A surge in Christmas holiday spending wasn’t enough to rescue U.K. retailers from anemic growth for 2024 as a whole, with economic woes continuing to depress confidence among British shoppers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Total retail sales increased by 3.2% on year in the four weeks to Dec. 28, a vital shopping season when consumers buy gifts, food and drinks for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

A crafting company founded by Sara Davies, the entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den panellist, is set to appoint administrators as part of a pre-pack insolvency of the business, The Times reported. Crafter’s Companion, which Davies, 40, turned from a start-up in her university bedroom into an international seller of paper craft, art and sewing products, is preparing to appoint administrators at Interpath as part of a fast-track process. A notice of intention to appoint administrators was filed at the High Court in recent days by Growth Partner, the business’s majority shareholder.

Switzerland’s inflation rate edged down in the final month of 2024, reinforcing the Swiss central bank’s decision to cut its key rate for the fourth-straight meeting last month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 0.6% higher in December than the same month of 2023, down from the annual inflation rate of 0.7% posted in November, the country’s statistics agency said Tuesday. December’s rate was the same as October’s level, which was the lowest since June 2021.

Saudi Arabia, one of the largest bond issuers in emerging markets last year, has started 2025 with a funding spree as the country fuels its vast economic transformation plan, Bloomberg News reported. The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund signed a $7 billion Islamic loan with a group of 20 international and regional banks, it said Monday. The announcement came hours after the finance ministry began a dollar-bond sale and days after it raised $2.5 billion from three foreign banks.

Britain's anti-trust regulator said it would begin two investigations this month using its new powers over the biggest tech firms, which are aimed at stimulating investment, innovation and growth, Reuters reported. The CMA will designate firms as having "Strategic Market Status" (SMS) in relation to a particular digital activity before they can be investigated. The bar for SMS status is high, with only the largest, most influential tech firms affected.

The Moroccan Confederation of SMEs (CMTPME) announced on Sunday that more than 40,000 businesses in Morocco declared bankruptcy in 2024, as the unemployment rate rose from 16.2% in 2014 to 21.3% in 2024, marking a record high not seen in the past decade, AL24News.com reported.