Headlines

Chinese solar module producer Zhejiang Akcome New Energy Technology has filed for bankruptcy at one of its subsidiaries, citing an inability to repay its debts, according to a Monday filing, Reuters reported. Zhejiang Akcome Photoelectricity Technology's petition to enter bankruptcy restructuring was submitted by the parent company and was accepted by Changxing county court in eastern Zhejiang province, according to the filing with the Shenzhen stock exchange.

Liquidators trying to recoup at least a fraction of creditors’ investments in defaulted Chinese builders are running into dead-ends, Bloomberg News reported. They have encountered a host of challenges, from trying to get paid to scouring for financial documents and elusive executives. Creditors in three cases, including Sinic Holdings Group Co. and Yango Justice International Ltd., haven’t seen any significant distribution. Sinic’s case stalled, for example, after representatives from Kroll (HK) Ltd. didn’t land funding for an investigation to recover the financial books, the people said.

Chinese leaders said they would take more aggressive steps to boost consumer spending and head off a worsening set of economic challenges, signaling rising concern about flagging momentum in the world’s second-largest economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Communist Party’s top policymaking body, the 24-member Politburo, pledged more measures to boost household income and reduce funding costs for companies, though the report from the state-run Xinhua News Agency offered few specifics on what it is planning.

Byju’s is in talks to settle the dues it owes India’s cricket governing body, lawyers for both sides told a court Tuesday, raising the prospect that the online tutoring startup may resolve a key dispute and avert insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. Byju’s has “almost resolved” a dispute over unpaid fees to the Board of Control for Cricket in India and will pay “a certain tranche of the money” by this evening, Arun Kathpalia, a lawyer representing the edtech firm told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal during a hearing.

At the end of last week, Priogo AG filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings with the responsible district court in Bonn, PV-Magazine.com reported. The judges appointed lawyer Franz Zilkens from the Voigt Salus law firm as provisional insolvency administrator, as noted in the public announcement. The reason for the bankruptcy application has been the extremely difficult market situation since the middle of last year, sources told pv magazine. There is strong competition in the region, which affects not only PV installations, but also the heating industry.

German inflation accelerated in July, evidence that may add to the European Central Bank’s caution as it moves toward further interest-rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 2.6% from a year earlier in July, up from 2.5% the previous month. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had predicted the pace to remain stable. While energy costs eased less than in June, food price pressures increased and services remained stable. A separate report earlier showed Spanish inflation slowing more than predicted. Readings for France, Italy and the euro area are due on Wednesday.

Switzerland's financial supervisor has been scrutinising how UBS vets risky wealthy clients that it wants to transfer from Credit Suisse, sources said, as the regulator takes a hands-on approach to the bank's integration of its fallen rival, Reuters.

Ethiopia’s defaulted international bond jumped after the International Monetary Fund agreed to lend the country $3.4 billion over four years as part of an economic reform program, a key step that’s also expected to ease negotiations with creditors on restructuring its debt, Bloomberg News reported. The decision will allow the immediate disbursement of about $1 billion, the fund said in a statement on Monday announcing the loan. The IMF funds are part of about $10.7 billion that eastern Africa’s biggest economy expects from creditors through loans, grants and debt re-profiling.

Pakistan cut its benchmark interest rate for a second consecutive meeting as slowing price gains give policymakers room to focus on shoring up growth in the cash-strapped South Asian nation, Bloomberg News reported. The State Bank of Pakistan reduced the target policy rate by 100 basis points to 19.50%, according to central bank governor Jameel Ahmad. The move was predicted by 31 out of 51 analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Japanese companies established Thailand’s auto industry virtually from scratch, dating back to the years after World War II. By the late 1970s, Japanese brands commanded around 90 percent of car sales in Thailand. They invested in building Thai supply chains, and their cars were also widely perceived by customers as reliable, the New York Times reported. In the 1990s, American and South Korean automakers targeted the Thai market but barely made a dent in Japan’s share.