Headlines

For the past three years, steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has performed an extraordinary feat of corporate survival, Bloomberg News reported. The British industrialist managed to keep most of his empire of steel plants even as creditors circled, concerns arose about alleged wrongdoing regarding trades and he faced probes for suspected fraud and money laundering. Now his luck may be running out. Gupta’s Speciality Steel UK Ltd. unit went to court in London Wednesday to try to avoid liquidation.

The Polish government’s decision to reduce energy prices only until next September has “complicated” the outlook for inflation and effectively delayed the timing of interest rate cuts, according to the central bank, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s Monetary Policy Council will likely delay discussions over rate reductions until at least October, which could push back cuts into 2026, Governor Adam Glapinski said on Thursday. The MPC kept its benchmark unchanged at 5.75% during this week’s meeting.

Investors gave a lukewarm response to Thames Water’s equity raise, with several potential bidders ruling themselves out of the process, and the viability of one offer in doubt, Bloomberg News reported. CK Infrastructure Holdings — one of the firms tipped to invest — decided against placing a preliminary bid, according to people familiar with the matter. Thames set a deadline of Thursday for indicative bids. Carlyle Group Inc.

Retail trade in the eurozone fell in October for the first time since June, a sign of jitters among consumers despite accelerating wages and the economy expanding more than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. The euro area’s volume of retail trade declined 0.5% on month in October, reversing the 0.5% rise of September, statistics agency Eurostat said Thursday. Retailers could continue to struggle in the months ahead, after the eurozone’s key consumer-confidence gauge edged down in November, having already been subdued since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The International Monetary Fund’s internal watchdog has criticized the lender’s process for granting unusually large loans to troubled borrowers such as Argentina and Egypt, Bloomberg News reported. The fund’s Independent Evaluation Office studied roughly 20 years of lending under the so-called Exceptional Access Policy and prepared a set of recommendations, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the report isn’t public. The Washington, D.C.-based fund’s executive board is scheduled to discuss the findings today.

German manufacturing orders fell in October on lower automotive orders, continuing the trend of weak signals for the country’s troubled industrial sector, the Wall Street Journal reported. Factory orders slipped 1.5% on month in October, according to data published Thursday by Germany’s statistics agency Destatis. This was slightly less weak than economists’ expectations for a 2.0% decline, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Orders for the motor industry dropped 3.7%, amid concerns about the health of the sector.

Uganda’s central bank maintained its key lending rate at 9.75%, citing easing inflation amid increased investment in the country’s fledging oil-and-gas industry, the Wall Street Journal reported. Uganda’s economic outlook remains positive, strengthened by inflows into the oil industry, where France’s TotalEnergies and China’s Cnooc Ltd are developing a 230,000 barrels-a-day crude project. These investments are strengthening the local currency, easing imported inflation, Bank of Uganda Deputy Governor Michael Atingi-Ego said in a statement.

China will set another record for solar power installations this year even as the industry producing the equipment suffers from falling prices and profit margins, Bloomberg News reported. The country will install 230 to 260 gigawatts of solar capacity this year, said Wang Bohua, chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association. That will top the record of 217 gigawatts set last year, and is an increase from the group’s February forecast of 190 to 220 gigawatts.

The Irish economy grew faster than previously estimated in the third quarter on the back of a rebound in multinational exports, according to official data, the Irish Times reported. GDP (gross domestic product) increased by 3.5 per cent between July and September, revised up from previous estimate increase of 2 per cent, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Thursday.

Northvolt has held talks with a big industrial company on selling the business that makes electric battery packs for heavy industry, as a lack of funds forces it to try to divest one of its few profitable operations by the year-end, an internal memo shows, Reuters reported. The rush to sell is the Swedish company's latest effort to strengthen its finances and shrink the business to focus on battery cell production, rather than being an all-in-one-shop for making and recycling electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Last month, Europe's biggest hope for an EV battery champion filed for U.S.