Validus Power Corp., which operates a power plant in northern Ontario, has been forced into receivership, CTVNews.ca reported. Validus ran the power plant under an agreement with Macquarie Equipment Finance Ltd. In April 2022, Macquarrie bought the turbines, plant and equipment from Iroquois Falls Power Corp. for $45 million, then leased it back to Validus to operate. Under the lease agreement with Validus, Macquarie was to receive monthly rent payments, with the understanding that the corporation could be forced into bankruptcy if it defaulted.

An agreement between El Salvador and a group of private local banks to reprofile its short-term debt has helped extend a stellar rally in its international bonds, which have returned more than 90% this year, Reuters reported. The government announced last week that it accepted the proposal by eight private banks to extend the maturities of short term local bills into new two, three, five and seven year notes. The size of the operation is approximately $1.45 billion, the finance ministry told Reuters.

The Bank of Canada held its main interest rate steady at 5% after back-to-back rate rises in June and July, saying the economy has shifted into a weaker phase and labor-market pressures have eased, the Wall Street Journal reported. Nevertheless, the central bank Wednesday said it remained concerned “about the persistence of underlying inflationary pressures,” and is prepared to raise rates again should conditions not improve. Along with the U.S.

Mexico’s annual inflation eased roughly in line with expectations in August, as the central bank says it’s not yet ready to discuss lowering record high borrowing costs given the “complex and uncertain” global outlook, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 4.64% from the same month a year earlier, down from 4.79% in July, the national statistics institute reported Thursday.

The Bank of Canada on Wednesday is expected to keep rates on hold at a 22-year high of 5% after the economy unexpectedly shrank in the second quarter, analysts said, Reuters reported. The central bank hiked rates by a quarter point in both June and July, and then said it was prepared to raise rates again to tame inflation that has remained above the bank's 2% target for 27 months. While the economy turned negative in the second quarter, inflation has been stubborn, unexpectedly rising to 3.3% in July as core measures remained well above 3%.

Nubank, one of Latin America's biggest fintech companies, announced on Tuesday the launch of personal loans for the Mexican market, aiming to boost its financial services portfolio in the region's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The new product will allow customers to obtain personal loans in less than five minutes through its platform, the digital bank's Mexican arm, known as Nu Mexico, said in a statement. The service will be available to employees on a test mode before hitting the market in the following months, it added.

A surprise second-quarter contraction and a flat growth estimate for July suggests that the Bank of Canada has probably done enough to bring inflation to heel, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank at a 0.2% annualized pace last quarter, and economic growth at the beginning of the third didn’t look much stronger. While the contraction was partly due to wildfires and drought, household consumption was weak, suggesting aggressive increases to interest rates have already reined in spending by heavily indebted Canadians. First-quarter growth was revised downward.

Concerns about the shaky US office market ate into Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s earnings, which fell far short of analyst estimates as the lender set aside more than expected for souring loans, Bloomberg News reported. Provisions for credit losses totaled C$736 million ($543 million) in the fiscal third quarter, according to a statement Thursday, more than the C$456 million analysts had predicted. The bank had put aside C$438 million in the previous three months. The Toronto-based bank’s C$1.52 of adjusted earnings per share missed an average analyst estimate of C$1.68.

Mexico’s central bank raised its growth projection for the country’s economy for this year and next, signaling that activity is surpassing policymakers’ expectations in large part due to strong trade with the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. Banxico, as the central bank is known, revised its estimate for 2023’s expansion to 3% from the prior reading of 2.3%, according to its quarterly report released Wednesday. For 2024, the bank now expects a 2.1% GDP expansion compared to the previous 1.6% estimate.

TV Azteca SAB agreed to negotiate with U.S. bondholders owed $400 million after a U.S. judge warned the second biggest broadcaster in Mexico that it could be forced to participate in a bankruptcy case in New York, Bloomberg News reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Lisa G. Beckerman told the company that it was obvious to her that TV Azteca had to restructure its debt, despite strong resistance from the company. TV Azteca opposes a U.S. bankruptcy and has used court rulings in Mexico to try to block bondholders from collecting on the defaulted bonds.