Headlines

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the economic recovery is on track despite disappointing output growth, but warned there’s a risk high inflation could prove more persistent than expected, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product suffered a shock contraction in the second quarter, and data since then suggest economic growth in the next three-month period will fall short of the central bank’s forecast for a 7.3% annualized gain.

Canadian mergers and acquisitions activity for the third quarter hit its highest since 2016 as historically low interest rates and strong equity markets helped companies to revive transactions that were put on hold due to the pandemic, Reuters reported. Dealmaking rose 27.7% to $76.6 billion in the third quarter of the year, but was significantly down from the record $120.3 billion recorded in the first three months of the year, according the Refinitiv data.

Ireland will join an international tax agreement that provides for a global minimum effective tax rate of 15 percent for large multinational corporations, the country's finance department announced Thursday, The Hill reported. The development comes as countries participating in negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are meeting Friday to reach an agreement. Ireland had previously been a key holdout to a deal.

China Evergrande Group offshore bondholders are concerned that it is close to defaulting on debt payments and want more information and transparency from the cash-strapped property developer, their advisers said, Reuters reported. Evergrande, which could trigger one of China's largest defaults as it wrestles with debts of more than $300 billion and whose troubles have already sent shockwaves across global markets, missed payments on dollar bonds, worth a combined $131 million, that were due on Sept. 23 and Sept. 29.

British consumer morale has fallen to its lowest since February, when the country was under heavy COVID-19 restrictions, due to worries about the economic outlook and about rising prices, a Bank of America report showed on Friday, Reuters reported. The survey chimed with other gauges of consumer confidence in Britain that have suggested a growing cost-of-living squeeze has started to drag on the economy's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Surveying the rows of purple cabbage that stretch across one of her fields, Katharine Nundy says the outlook for her farm is gloomy. Like other farmers across the U.K., she used to rely on an influx of seasonal workers from the European Union to bring in the harvest, and is struggling without it this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. left the 27-member bloc last year and brought an end this year to the free movement of EU citizens into the country in the midst of a pandemic that has created labor shortages in many major economies.

Creditors have yet to receive repayment of a dollar bond they say is guaranteed by China Evergrande Group and one of its units, in what could be the firm’s first major miss on maturing notes since regulators urged the developer to avoid a near-term default, Bloomberg News reported. Some investors hadn’t received the principal payment for a note that matured Oct. 3 as of Thursday in Hong Kong, according to people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named discussing private matters. As Oct. 3 was a Sunday, the effective due date was Monday.

The Mexican president's proposal to reform the country's electricity sector is "negative" for the sovereign credit rating of Latin America's second-largest economy, Moody's Investors Service said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The ratings agency warned in a statement the bill would likely trigger international legal disputes, affect foreign investment competitiveness as well as take the country further away from reaching its climate goals.

Credit Suisse Group AG said that it will front “as much as possible” of the legal and advisory costs to recover cash for investors in supply-chain finance funds it ran with the now-defunct Greensill Capital, Bloomberg News reported. The majority of expenses incurred in recovering the money has not been passed onto investors, Credit Suisse said in a statement published on Wednesday. It estimates it will spend around $145 million for the process in 2021.

The European Union on Wednesday urged member countries to provide relief funds to consumers and small businesses hit hardest by rising gas and electricity prices, as criticism mounts that the bloc’s climate change fighting policies are fueling the problem, the Associated Press reported. In recent days, France and Spain have led the charge for change to the rules governing EU energy markets as the price surge ramps up already-high utility bills and increases pressure on many people already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.