Headlines

The French government moved to break blockades at fuel depots of some of the country’s biggest refineries, where weeks-long strikes that have brought shortages and long lines at gas stations, Bloomberg News reported. With wage talks between managements and some unions not going far enough, the labor actions have left almost a third of the gas stations in the country with supply shortfalls.

Germany is coming around to backing the idea of joint EU debt issuance to help cushion the blow of the energy crisis, as long as the freshly raised money is disbursed to struggling member states as loans, not grants, Bloomberg News reported. The change in the position follows criticism from other leaders that Germany’s €200 billion national aid plan could trigger economic imbalances in the bloc. The EU’s pandemic-era SURE program — which offers employment support of as much as €100 billion in the form of loans — could provide a blueprint for a new debt-backed instrument, we’ve been told.

The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on Monday warned of economic headwinds that are raising the risk of a global financial recession, The Hill reported. “There’s the risk and the real danger of a world recession next year. The advanced economies are slowing in Europe and so we’ll see where it goes into next year,” World Bank Group President David Malpass told IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during their discussion.

Ghana's finance ministry has formed a five-member committee with the Bank of Ghana to lead discussions with the financial services industry concerning an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, it said in a statement on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The goal of the committee is to "ensure orderliness and confidence in the government's ongoing negotiations with the IMF," the statement said. A similar engagement will be undertaken with external bondholders, it added.

An auction schedule to sell shares in Citgo Petroleum's parent company, which could force a breakup of the Venezuela-owned U.S. oil refiner, was approved by a U.S. federal judge and filed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark's order sets bidding and sales procedures, hiring of investment banker Evercore Group and directs an approach to the U.S. Treasury Department to seek a decision on any share sale. The Treasury has protected Citgo from creditors by previously not allowing transactions.

Economic activity in Russia slowed significantly at the end of September, Bank of Russia Deputy Governor Alexei Zabotkin told lawmakers on Tuesday, but payments to mobilised troops should cushion the negative effect on consumer demand, Reuters reported. President Vladimir Putin announced on Sept. 21 that 300,000 people would be mobilised to boost Russia's efforts in what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, but details of the economic impact have so far been thin on the ground.

Rapidly rising interest rates are squeezing the flow of private capital to the world’s poorest countries. The problem is that the preferred alternatives—the International Monetary Fund and World Bank—are getting quickly committed, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lending by the pair has reached a record as they help poor and emerging countries cope with the pandemic, soaring energy and food costs and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A crisis in U.K. government debt markets accelerated after a fresh attempt by the Bank of England to extend support to pension funds failed to assuage worried investors, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The U.K.’s central bank said Monday that it would increase the daily amounts it was willing to buy in long-dated bonds before ending the program it established last month as scheduled on Friday. It also unveiled two types of lending facilities aimed at freeing up cash for pension funds beyond the end of the bond buying. The moves appeared to backfire, with yields on 30-year U.K.

The main units of China SCE Group Holdings Ltd. and Shimao Group Holdings Ltd. missed payments on 1.6 billion yuan ($225 million) of trust borrowings, adding to a string of defaults by Chinese developers as the industry’s liquidity crunch spreads, Bloomberg News reported. Xiamen Zhongjun Industrial Co., a unit of SCE and one of the guarantors, failed to repay its 50% share of a trust product that was due at the end of September, according to documents sent by the issuer Everbright Trust Co. to the product distributor that were seen by Bloomberg News.

Mexico is considering changes to its stock market law to entice family-controlled companies to go public in a bid to end a years-long drought in public listings and help attract more investors to Latin America’s second largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. The reforms being reviewed by regulators and government officials would both allow dual-class share listings and make it easier to block hostile takeovers, according to people with knowledge of the discussions and a draft proposal seen by Bloomberg News.