Headlines

Canada's second-largest pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is exploring legal options over bankrupt crypto lending firm Celsius and will no longer invest in crypto firms, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. CDPQ's statement came as the fund recovers from its failed investment in New Jersey-based Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in July less than a year after it received an investment of $150 million from the fund.

Canadian mortgage investment corporations (MICs), alternative lenders that offer riskier home loans and small construction financing, are struggling to attract investors, firms and analysts said, which could increase pressure on them and spur consolidation in the sector, Reuters reported. These alternative lenders, which make up about 1.5% of Canada's mortgage market, drew investors looking for high returns as interest rates hit rock bottom in recent years. But with rates rising rapidly under a Bank of Canada tightening cycle this year, investors have sought higher-yielding, safer assets.

China's central bank is set to take more easing steps, pressured by a shaky economy that is undercutting jobs, but it faces limited room to manoeuvre due to worries over rising inflation and capital flight, policy insiders and analysts said, Reuters reported. Analysts now expect cuts in the country's benchmark lending rates as early as Monday, after the People's Bank of China (PBOC) unexpectedly lowered two key rates this week as data showed the economy unexpectedly slowed in July.

Uniper, Germany’s largest importer of natural gas, reported on Wednesday a loss of more than 12 billion euros (or $12.2 billion) for the first half of the year as the company coped with dwindling supplies of natural gas provided by Russia, the New York Times reported. Uniper said that the losses were a direct result of having to pay inflated prices for gas on the open market in order to make up for the Russian shortfall.

Germany’s RWE AG has turned to the debt market for funding, as Europe faces its worst energy crunch in decades, Bloomberg News reported. The company saw over 2 billion euros ($2 billion) of investor demand for at least 500 million euros of three-year bonds on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. It’s RWE’s first venture into Europe’s debt market since May and adds to the region’s busiest day for new deals in two months.

Consumer price inflation cooled as gasoline prices fell by the most since the start of the pandemic, though underlying price pressures will likely push the Bank of Canada to continue delivering aggressive rate hikes, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 7.6% in July from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. The inflation gauge increased 0.1% from a month earlier, the seventh straight increase. Both numbers matched the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

China will boost economic demand in a strong, reasonable and moderate manner and accelerate infrastructure construction in the third quarter of the year, officials from the state planner said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The comments came after bleak data for July, which showed the world's second-biggest economy unexpectedly slowed and property investment falling at the fastest clip this year.

China’s embattled developers surged in the stock and bond markets Tuesday on news that authorities are planning to help some raise fresh financing, adding to signs of official support for an industry grappling with a debt crisis and slumping home sales, Bloomberg News reported. Notes from Country Garden Holdings Co., CIFI Holdings Group Co. and Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. soared at least 11 cents on the dollar Tuesday, according to Bloomberg-compiled prices, set for the biggest gains since March.

Malaysia's top court on Tuesday denied a request by former Prime Minister Najib Razak to introduce new evidence in his final appeal against a 12-year jail sentence for a case linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal, Reuters reported. Najib faces dozens of charges over the alleged theft of $4.5 billion from 1MDB, a state fund he co-founded as premier in 2009, in a wide-ranging scandal that has ensnared high-ranking officials and financial institutions stretching from Hollywood to the Middle East.

Factories in Russian-occupied areas of the Ukraine were packed up and moved on trains and trucks, and are being resurrected in the west, the New York Times reported. Manufacturers are creating jobs and hunting for skilled workers. Now closer to Poland — Ukraine’s gateway to Germany and western Europe — the reborn businesses are forging ties with the European Union, which Ukraine hopes to join soon. “The main motivation for them to come here is that they stay in Ukraine,” said Andriy Moskalenko, the deputy mayor of Lviv responsible for economic affairs.