Headlines

Austrian real estate developer Imfarr Beteiligungs GmbH filed for insolvency in a Vienna court on Tuesday, citing higher financing costs and a drop in demand for office spaces, Bloomberg News reported. Imfarr, which invests in commercial properties in Germany and Austria, said it failed to complete construction projects and sales transactions after the “unexpectedly rapid rise in interest rates,” according to a statement from Austrian creditor’s association KSV1870. “Demand for office real estate in Germany came to a complete standstill,” the filing said.

Selina Networks filed for bankruptcy on Monday, citing a 95% drop in stock value since its IPO, massive debts, and an inability to meet financial obligations with its investors, the company informed the Inter-American Development Bank, YnetNews.com reported. Listed on NASDAQ 18 months ago with a valuation of $1.2 billion, Selina's stock price has plummeted by 99%, leaving the company valued at about $20 million. Facing potential delisting from NASDAQ, the company's stock price has fallen below the minimum threshold.

Embattled French IT company Atos SE has appointed its sixth chief executive officer in less than three years, as the group moves ahead with its creditors’ restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. Atos Chairman Jean-Pierre Mustier will take over as CEO from Paul Saleh to steer the company through the final stages of the bailout agreement, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. He will remain chairman of Atos’ board.

Scotland’s corporate insolvencies dipped by 3.1% in Q1 2024-2025 compared to the previous fiscal year, totaling 283, Scottish Financial News reported. Despite this decrease, figures are still 17.9% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The Bank of Canada cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point for a second consecutive meeting and signaled further easing ahead as inflation worries wane, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers led by Governor Tiff Macklem lowered the benchmark overnight rate to 4.5% on Wednesday, as widely expected by markets and economists in a Bloomberg survey. Officials see below-potential growth continuing to cool inflation, and said they’re spending more time discussing economic headwinds.

Mexico’s headline inflation accelerated much more than expected early this month, complicating investor bets that Banco de Mexico will resume interest rate cuts in August, Bloomberg News reported. Official data published Wednesday showed consumer prices rose 5.61% in the first two weeks of July from the same period a year earlier, above all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists that had a 5.38% median estimate.

German consumers offered a brighter picture of their incomes this year, as inflation ticks down and the European soccer tournament in the country offered a boost, a monthly survey said, the Wall Street Journal reported. The forward-looking consumer-climate index for Germany, published Wednesday by research group GfK and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions, forecasts confidence to rise 3.2 points to minus 18.4 points in August. That was a little better than the consensus of minus 20.8 from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

Turkey’s central bank said it’s focusing attention on a build-up of lira liquidity as it extended its interest-rate pause into a fourth month, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Fatih Karahan, left the one-week repo rate at 50% on Tuesday. It repeated that the sterilization of liquidity “will be implemented effectively” with additional tools, with state media reporting that the authority is preparing to use foreign exchange and gold swaps to mop up excess liras.

Britain's information watchdog has rejected a Reuters appeal to identify lenders who have lost or surrendered state guarantees on millions of pounds of COVID-19 emergency loans, citing potential harm to their commercial interests, Reuters reported. Reuters revealed in November that government guarantees on about 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) of pandemic-era loans to stricken businesses had been scrapped, based on data obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the British Business Bank (BBB), which oversees the emergency lending schemes.