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England and Wales recorded the second-highest number of company insolvencies since 2009 last month, government figures showed, reflecting high interest rates and increased costs caused by rapid inflation in 2022 and 2023, Reuters reported. June saw 2,361 company insolvencies on a seasonally adjusted basis, Britain's Insolvency Service agency said, 17% more than a year earlier and the most since May 2023. The high total partly reflects an increase in the overall number of companies.

Defaulted builder Sino-Ocean Group Holding Ltd. is working to garner enough support to help secure approval for its debt restructuring plan, but remains far short of the needed backing amid opposition from a key bondholder group, Bloomberg News reported. The company has support from a lender group representing about half of the company’s so-called Class A debt, Sino-Ocean said in a Thursday filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange. Lenders have either entered into a restructuring support agreement or are going through internal procedures to obtain the relevant approvals to do so.

Ontario's self-described Crypto King will likely remain bankrupt until criminal fraud and money laundering charges are resolved against the 25-year-old, CBC.ca reported. Justice William Black dismissed Aiden Pleterski's application for a discharge from his nearly two-year-long bankruptcy in a ruling released on Thursday. "Mr. Pleterski's conduct warrants an emphasis on public protection and accountability," wrote the Ontario Superior Court judge.

U.K. shoppers turned away from retail outlets last month, after highs in May, amid election jitters and poor weather, the Wall Street Journal reported. Retail sales volumes declined 1.2% on month in June, undoing some of the 2.9% rise in May, according to the Office for National Statistics. The data comes after consumer-confidence figures showed only a marginal improvement on month in July, as British people showed caution about how the new U.K. government would affect the economy and their finances.

ION Group completed the acquisition of Italian asset manager Prelios SpA for €1.35 billion ($1.5 billion), following months of back-and-forth with Italian authorities on the deal, Bloomberg News reported. The acquisition, done through a unit called X3 Group, was financed by a group of banks led by UniCredit SpA, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and BNP Paribas SA, ION said in a statement Friday. “The deal is part of a broader strategy to improve asset management and efficient decision-making processes through the use of data,” Prelios Chairman Fabrizio Palenzona said in the statement.

Egypt kept interest rates at an all-time high for a second consecutive meeting, looking to ensure a slowdown in inflation continues after a dramatic currency devaluation, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank maintained the benchmark deposit rate at 27.25% and the lending rate at 28.25%, its Monetary Policy Committee said Thursday in a statement. “The Committee judges that the current monetary stance is appropriate to support the sustained moderation of inflation, and will continue to assess its transmission to the economy in a data-driven manner,” it said in the statement.

Ethiopia’s official creditors have granted financing assurances to the country to help fast-track approval of a new loan by the International Monetary Fund’s executive board, Bloomberg News reported. Members of an official creditor committee held a meeting last week to approve the financing assurances, according to two of the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. Financing assurances mean that bilateral creditors such as the Paris Club and China provided certainty that they will restructure their loans to Ethiopia in a way that’s consistent with the fund’s program.

Zambia’s proposed ban on charging foreign currency in local transactions — punishable with 10-year jail terms — might defeat its own purpose, according to the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank of Africa’s second-biggest copper producer in June unveiled the plans to curb increasing dollarization in the economy that it said blunts its tools to fight inflation. Businesses have already pushed-back on proposed regulations calling them “punitive” and warning that they may actually fuel price growth.

EU tariffs on electric vehicles built in China breach global trading rules and must be corrected, an industry body representing 12 Chinese automakers told the European Commission in a hearing this week, Reuters reported. The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME) presented its view at a hearing on Thursday that the EU's preliminary assessment is incompatible with EU and World Trade Organization rules. "We are very concerned.

Britain added 11 new shipping sanctions under its Russia sanctions regime related to the war in Ukraine, an official notice showed on Thursday, SwissInfo.ch reported. The government said the sanctions on ships including Zaliv Amurskiy and SCF Pechora relate to the carrying of oil or oil products from Russia to a third country. The ships are believed to have the flags of Panama, Gabon and the Cook Islands, the government notice said.