Headlines

AirAsia X Bhd.’s shares dived by the most in more than a year after the long haul budget airline was officially categorized as a financially distressed firm, which gives the company a year to recast its finances or risk losing its Malaysian listing, Bloomberg News reported. The stock tumbled as much as 21.1% to 7.5 sen on Monday, set for the steepest drop since August 2020. The shares traded at 8 sen at 10:40 a.m. local time amid volume that was six times the average for this time of day.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday that dealing with high fuel prices in the country is his top priority right now, adding that he sees the privatization of state-run oil company Petrobras as an "ideal" move, Reuters reported. Bolsonaro told reporters during a visit to Anguillara Veneta, in Italy, that he was "unofficially" told that Petroleo Brasileiro SA - as the company is formally known - is expected to raise fuel prices at the refineries again in about 20 days. "Every bad thing that comes from Petrobras is my fault...

Japan's automobile sales slumped 31.3% in October from a year earlier to mark the fourth straight month of declines, industry data showed on Monday, a sign output cuts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were hurting the country's already weak consumption, Reuters reported. The domestic sales data is among few indicators available so far in gauging the strength of consumption since state of emergency curbs to combat the pandemic were lifted on Sept. 30. The sales slump highlights the widening damage of supply disruptions on the economy.

A troubling post-Brexit fishing spat between Britain and France showed few signs of abating Monday, a day before a threatened French blockade of British boats and trucks, the Associated Press reported. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned France that the U.K. will “not roll over” in the face of what she termed “unreasonable” threats from Paris. French fishing crews stood their ground, demanding a political solution to a local dispute that has become the latest battleground between Britain and the European Union.

The Irish commercial property market has been “phenomenally busy” in the past two months, with the ability of investors and occupiers to travel to undertake property inspections having had a “transformative effect” on it, according to a new report, the Irish Times reported. Commercial property specialist CBRE today published their final bimonthly report for 2021 on Monday, which provides an overview of trends and transactions in all sectors of Ireland’s commercial property market as the year begins to draw to a close.

As world leaders gather for a United Nations conference in Glasgow to tackle the threat of climate change, attention is pivoting to one of the biggest risks involved in decarbonizing the planet: ensuring that the costs of the green transition don’t set off a populist backlash, the New York Times reported. The worries are especially acute in Europe, where policymakers are expressing growing alarm over the possibility of social unrest and a weakening of public support if the burden of shifting from cheap fossil fuels falls too heavily on poor and middle-income households.

Saudi Arabia banned imports from Lebanon and, along with three other Gulf states, expelled its ambassador following remarks by an official about the war in Yemen, as long-simmering tensions over Iran’s influence in Lebanon spill over and threaten to damage its already disastrous economy, the Wall Street Journal reported.

England and Wales have seen a surge in company directors winding up businesses that are unable to pay their debts, taking so-called voluntary liquidations to their highest level since 2009 in the depths of the global financial crisis, Reuters reported. Total company insolvencies in England and Wales jumped in the three months to the end of September to their highest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at 3,765, up 43% on a year earlier, government data showed on Friday.

China Evergrande Group avoided default for a second time by making an overdue interest payment on dollar bonds shortly before the end of a 30-day grace period, the Wall Street Journal reported. Evergrande, one of China’s largest real-estate developers, made a coupon payment that was originally due on Sept. 29, the people said. Evergrande was on the hook to pay about $45 million of interest on $951 million of bonds, which have a 9.5% coupon and mature in 2024, according to CreditSights research.

Mexico's first economic contraction since a recovery began from the coronavirus pandemic poses a challenge to the central bank's monetary policy tightening cycle, but stubbornly high inflation appears likely to take precedence, analysts said on Friday, Reuters reported. The Mexican economy shrank 0.2% in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter after a resurgence in the coronavirus pandemic dragged down service sector activity and disrupted global supply chains, preliminary data showed.