Headlines

German insolvencies rose in May by almost a third from a year earlier, according to data that a lobby group warns is now on track to breach a level last seen in 2017, Bloomberg News reported. Results for the month showed that local courts reported 1,934 corporate insolvencies with claims of about €3.4 billion ($3.7 billion), numbers on Friday published by Germany’s statistics office showed. The total is up 30.9% from the same period a year earlier, and preliminary data point to increases of 6.3% and 13.5% for June and July, respectively.

Chinese electric vehicle maker Human Horizons Group Inc., the company behind the premium HiPhi brand, has filed for pre-bankruptcy restructuring — becoming another victim of China’s cutthroat auto market, Bloomberg News reported. The manufacturer lodged an application to a People’s Court in Yancheng, the eastern Chinese city where its factory is located, saying its assets could no longer cover debt as of April and fulfilled the conditions for a bankruptcy, according to a court document published Thursday.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. will square off with creditors in a crucial hearing Monday over its fate, facing a court that may be open to winding up one of the largest Chinese developers, Bloomberg News reported. Sued by its creditors to liquidate after a 2021 bond default, Kaisa has been fighting against their efforts for about a year without publicly presenting a restructuring plan. The lack of progress drove Judge Peter Ng of Hong Kong’s High Court to warn the Shenzhen-based company in June that Monday’s hearing might be its last chance to avoid being put into involuntary liquidation.

China's central bank will seek to "enrich" its monetary policy toolbox and will gradually increase buying and selling of treasury bonds in its open market operations, its second-quarter monetary policy implementation report said on Friday, Reuters reported.

China’s consumer inflation rose more than expected last month but the data didn’t paint a strong enough picture to dispel concerns about weak demand in the world’s second-largest economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s consumer-price index rose for a sixth consecutive month in July, ticking up 0.5% from a year earlier and marking a five-month high, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. One-off factors like weather disruptions to food supply pushed up prices, plumping up the headline reading, economists say.

Postmedia’s $1-million bid to acquire Atlantic Canada’s largest newspaper chain will not be held up by the main union that represents workers at SaltWire Network Inc. and The Halifax Herald Ltd., the Canadian Press reported. A lawyer representing the court-appointed monitor overseeing insolvency proceedings for SaltWire and the The Halifax Herald confirmed that the Canadian arm of the Communications Workers of America has agreed to certain conditions demanded last week by Toronto-based Postmedia.

Mexico's central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate in a divided vote to 10.75%, the monetary authority said on Thursday, cutting the key borrowing rate from 11.00% but also signaling that it expects prices to rise higher than previously expected, Reuters reported. Three members of the bank's board voted to lower the rate by 25 basis points, while two others sought to hold it steady, according to a statement announcing the decision. In its statement, the bank noted it expects inflationary pressures in Latin America's No.

Ethiopia caught its bondholders off-guard with a proposal to introduce a 20% haircut in the nation’s debt-restructuring process, setting the scene for tense negotiations, Bloomberg News reported. The government’s suggestion to reduce the value of $1 billion eurobonds due in December contrasts with proposals creditors exchanged with Ethiopia last year, which would have seen them receive the principal in full, but over a longer period and at lower interest rates, according to Kevin Daly, emerging markets investment director at Abrdn Investment Management Ltd.

Former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang was convicted Thursday in a financial conspiracy case that welled up from from his country's “ tuna bond ” scandal and swept into a U.S. court, the Associated Press reported. A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict. Chang was accused of accepting payoffs to put his African nation secretly on the hook for big loans to government-controlled companies for tuna fishing ships and other maritime projects.

Canada’s labor-relations board again opened the door to a possible work stoppage at the country’s two big rail operators after determining a strike or lockout doesn’t pose an immediate or serious danger to safety or public health, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Canada Industrial Relations Board, in a decision Friday, ordered a 13-day cooling-off period between the freight railroads—Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway—and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.