Canada's annual inflation rate accelerated to an 18-year-high in August, driven by broad upward price pressures, data showed on Wednesday, just days before a hotly contested federal election that could see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals ousted, Reuters reported. The rate rose to 4.1% in August, its fastest clip since March 2003, Statistics Canada said, beating analyst estimates and prompting Trudeau's main rival to pounce over the rising cost of living.

A day after being spurned by Kansas City Southern, Canadian National Railway is facing additional pressure from a major investor who wants CN to abandon its effort to buy the U.S. railroad, the Associated Press reported. The London-based investment firm TCI Fund — which owns about 5% of CN’s stock and about 8% of rival Canadian Pacific’s shares — said Monday that it is calling for a special CN shareholder meeting where it plans to nominate four new directors. TCI has said it thinks CN should overhaul its board, get a new CEO and refocus its efforts on improving its own operations.

A Cayman Island mutual fund whose manager was charged in a $100 million bait-and-switch scheme filed for chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. to protect its assets from lawsuits by disgruntled investors, Bloomberg News reported. Representatives of the so-called Income Collecting 1-3 Months T-Bills Mutual Fund asked a federal bankruptcy judge in New York on Friday to recognize their efforts to liquidate the company, which they said would include an attempt to pay back investors. Recognition of the foreign liquidation would put a hold on any lawsuits against the fund.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into German insurer Allianz is looking at possible misconduct by fund managers and misrepresentation of risk to investors, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The probe, disclosed by the company on Aug. 1, is focused on Allianz funds that used complex options strategies to generate returns but racked up massive losses when the spread of COVID-19 triggered wild stock market swings in February and March 2020.

As Mexico’s economy rebounds from its biggest recession in almost a century, investors are piling back into the debt of the worst affected companies, in the worst affected industries, Bloomberg News reported. Defaulted bonds sold by hotel chain Grupo Posadas SAB, broadcaster TV Azteca SAB and flagship airline Grupo Aeromexico SAB are all among the top ten returning notes over the last three months, landing investors gains of at least 13%. Each company is benefiting from the turnaround of Mexico’s fortunes, driven mainly by an economic boom in the U.S., the nation’s biggest trading partner.

The Canadian economy is moving closer to a point where the Bank of Canada will no longer need to continue adding stimulus through its quantitative easing (QE) program, but it is not there yet, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Macklem, in a speech the day after the central bank held its key rate at 0.25%, said it would eventually move to a reinvestment phase, where it bought only enough bonds to replace those that are maturing. This maintains stimulus but does not add new stimulus.

Mexico's government on Wednesday proposed sharply reducing the tax burden for state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos and forecast economic growth of 4.1% for 2022, as Latin America's second largest economy continues to recover from a COVID-19-induced slump, Reuters reported. The finance ministry's 2022 draft budget, which it presented to Congress earlier in the day, laid out a profit sharing rate (DUC) - effectively a tax paid to the government - of 40% for the oil giant known locally as Pemex.

The $10 billion takeover battle for British supermarket group Morrisons between two U.S. private equity groups looks set to be decided by a rarely used auction process, Reuters reported. Morrisons said on Wednesday that it was in talks with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), Fortress Investment Group and Britain's takeover regulator about an auction to settle its future. Last month, Morrisons agreed a 7 billion pound ($9.6 billion) offer from CD&R, which has former Tesco boss Terry Leahy as a senior adviser.

U.S. payments giant PayPal Holdings Inc. said it would acquire Japanese "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) firm Paidy in a $2.7 billion largely cash deal, taking another step to claim the top spot in an industry experiencing a pandemic-led boom, Reuters reported. The deal tracks rival Square Inc.'s agreement last month to buy Australian BNPL success story Afterpay Ltdfor $29 billion, which experts said was likely the beginning of a consolidation in the sector.

Just 160 Canadian businesses filed for insolvency in July, marking a 35-year low in new filings, according to new data from the Office for the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, the Financial Post reported.