An Ontario judge has authorized a sale process which could see The Body Shop Canada land new owners, the Canada Press reported. Justice Peter Osborne granted an application today from the beleaguered retailer, which wants to be able to engage with potential buyers who could keep the business afloat. The cosmetics retailer sought creditor protection earlier this year because its parent company, a European private equity firm, stripped it of cash and pushed it into debt, forcing it to close some stores.
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Resources Per Country
- Anguilla
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Netherlands Antilles
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- United States Virgin Islands
The saga of green-tech darling Nexii Building Solutions has ended with a court-approved bankruptcy sale of the company and its debts to two Americans, BIV reported. According to a BC Supreme Court approval and vesting order, Nexii Building Solutions and its subsidiaries have been sold to Nexiican Holdings Inc. and Nexii Inc. for $500,000 and assumption of more than $20 million in debt obligations. The principals of the two acquiring entities are Blake Beckham, a lawyer with Beckham Portela in Dallas, Texas, and director for Nexiican Holdings; and Russ Lambert, president of Nexii Inc.
The European Central Bank and the Bank of Canada in June joined the ranks of big central banks easing policy, while emerging markets ploughed ahead in their quest to lower interest rates, Reuters reported. Three of the nine central banks overseeing the 10 most heavily traded currencies that held meetings in June reduced their lending benchmarks, with Switzerland delivering its second rate cut in this cycle.
Global policymakers aren’t about to let the Federal Reserve’s delay in cutting interest rates distract them too much from their own easing efforts, Bloomberg reported. Among the 23 of the world’s top central banks featured in Bloomberg’s quarterly guide, only the Bank of Japan won’t end up lowering borrowing costs within the next 18 months. Most are already set to do so this year. In total, 155 basis points will be removed from an aggregate benchmark global rate compiled by Bloomberg Economics by the end of 2025.
The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the US is running deficits that are too big and is weighed down by too much debt, and it warned of dangers from increasingly aggressive trade policies, Bloomberg News reported. While calling the world’s largest economy “robust, dynamic and adaptable,” the fund leveled unusually harsh criticism toward the US, its biggest shareholder. It also slightly downgraded its estimate for growth this year to 2.6%, down 0.1 percentage point from its April forecast.
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Mexico kept borrowing costs unchanged near a record high Thursday, as the combination of still rising consumer prices and peso volatility sidelined the central bank for a second straight meeting, Bloomberg News reported. Banxico, as the central bank is known, held the key rate at 11% in a decision that had been forecast by 25 of 27 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. It was a split decision, with deputy Governor Omar Mejia voting for a quarter-point cut with the other four members of the board voting in favor of the hold.
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Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the country’s economy is headed for a soft landing, suggesting the central bank expects the unemployment rate to rise but that a large increase isn’t needed to achieve the inflation target, Bloomberg News reported. On Monday, Macklem said Canada’s unemployment rate — which hit 6.2% in May — was “just above” pre-pandemic levels, when the labor market was close to “maximum sustainable employment” — the highest level of jobs an economy can have without stoking inflation.
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Mexico’s inflation accelerated more than expected in early June to move further above the central bank’s target, likely cementing a second straight pause by Banco de Mexico at its Thursday rate meeting, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 4.78% in the first two weeks of the month from a year earlier, above the 4.73% median estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey and up from the 4.59% increase in the prior two-week period.
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Inflation unexpectedly surged in Canada, a setback for policymakers as they weigh further interest rate cuts next month, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 2.9% in May from a year ago, up from 2.7% a month earlier, primarily due to higher prices for services, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. On a monthly basis, the index climbed 0.6%, versus expectations for a 0.3% gain and up from 0.5% in April. On a seasonally adjusted basis, inflation rose 0.3%.
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Businesses failed to remit to Ottawa billions of dollars in sales taxes they had collected from customers last year, new data shows, indicating financial difficulties as those companies are unable to keep up with their invoices, the Globe and Mail reported. The Canada Revenue Agency says there was $19.4 billion in GST and HST debt outstanding as of March 31, an increase of $3.2 billion from a year ago and double what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s the largest single-year figure in CRA data, which goes back a decade.
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