China has left its main lending rates unchanged. The unexpectedly good economic growth in the first quarter gave the country enough scope to forego aggressive easing. The one-year loan prime rate remained at 3.0 percent and the five-year rate at 3.5 percent, according to data from the Chinese central bank on Monday. Both interest rates have remained at this level since May last year. Markets had largely expected interest rates to remain unchanged this month.
CREDIT RATING UKRAINE
Scope upgrades Ukraine to CCC (SD) – outlook stable
BAVARIA
The group has so far spent 24 billion euros on the legal disputes in the USA in the wake of the Monsanto takeover. This is the result of calculations by the Handelsblatt from the balance sheets since the purchase of the US group in 2018. The total includes costs for court proceedings, compensation payments and out-of-court settlements with plaintiffs. The majority of this goes to settling the lawsuits surrounding the weed killer glyphosate. Bayer wants to settle the 67,000 pending lawsuits and all future lawsuits through another out-of-court settlement that was presented in February. The total also includes costs for the legal dispute over the Monsanto products PCB and Dicamba. In the end, it is likely to be the second most expensive legal dispute by a German company in the USA after the VW diesel scandal. (Handelsblatt)
WACKER CHEMIE
expects a better operating result and sales than expected for the first quarter, primarily due to advance customer orders due to the conflict in the Middle East. Wacker now expects EBITDA of around 173 million euros on sales of around 1.41 billion euros. Analysts’ consensus from Vara Research had expected EBITDA of 146 million euros. In March, the group had previously forecast a decline in sales for the first quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year to around 1.35 billion euros and an EBITDA of between 140 to 160 million euros. As Wacker Chemie further announced, due to the existing uncertainties and the volatile order intake, the EBITDA forecast for the year remains unchanged in the range of 550 to 700 million euros. In terms of annual sales, Wacker Chemie now expects growth in the high single-digit percentage range instead of a low single-digit percentage range.
HIP
Rat poison was discovered in a jar of baby food in Austria. The Austrian health agency Ages expressed the suspicion that it could be an attempt at blackmail against the German manufacturer Hipp. The company recalled its entire range of baby bottles from the Spar supermarket chain in Austria on Friday evening due to health risks. For Germany, however, Hipp gave the all-clear. The tampered glass was reported by a customer, but it was not consumed. (FAZ)
===
NOTE: This briefing may contain message elements that have been automatically translated from the original English version into German using artificial intelligence. The English language version should be considered the authoritative version.
Contact the author: [email protected]
DJG/cln/flf
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 20, 2026 01:50 ET (05:50 GMT)
