By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Wednesday her office obtained a $1.065 billion judgment against Yellowstone Capital, a cash advance provider accused of predatory lending, as part of a settlement that gives small businesses more than a half-billion dollars of debt relief.

James sued Yellowstone, now known as Delta Bridge Funding or Cloudfund, last March, saying its network of companies falsely told merchants it would buy specified percentages of future revenue, known as receivables, and that they could obtain refunds on loan payments if business slowed.

The attorney general said Yellowstone instead debited fixed sums from merchants’ bank accounts, typically over 60 or 90 business days, resulting in “unconscionable” effective interest rates that often reached triple digits, reaching as high as 820%.

Rates above 16% are considered usurious in New York.

The settlement includes cancelling $534.5 million of debt owed by more than 18,000 small businesses nationwide, including some $36 million owed by more than 1,100 small businesses in New York, and $16.1 million paid by Yellowstone and its officers.

Yellowstone is liable for $514.3 million still outstanding. It isn’t immediately clear how that sum would be collected.

The attorney general’s lawsuit against Delta Bridge Funding, Cloudfund and Yellowstone co-founder David Glass is continuing.

“Yellowstone and its executives lined their pockets at the expense of vulnerable small businesses who turned to them for help,” James said in a statement. “Their predatory loans forced successful companies to close and put New Yorkers out of work.”

Eric Kanefsky, a lawyer for Yellowstone, said his client was pleased to settle. Lawyers for Delta, Cloudfund and Glass did not immediately respond to requests for comment. James’ office did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment.

In December 2023, Yellowstone agreed to pay $5.6 million and forgive $21.8 million of debt to resolve claims by New Jersey’s attorney general that it deceived businesses.

Investing.com — The U.S. government sold 20-year Treasuries on Wednesday at a lower-than-expected yield as stronger domestic buying eased the hit from softer demand.      

The notes were awarded at 4.900%, 1.1 basis point below the expected yield, or when-issue rate, of 4.911%, but well above the 4.686% high seen in the prior auction. 

The bid to cover ratio, a gauge of demand, for the auction rose to 2.75 from 2.50 seen in the prior auction. 

Dealers accounted for 51.3% of the bids, with direct bidders at 13.6% of the auction, and indirect bidders at 35.1%.

By Divya Chowdhury and Niket Nishant

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – A strong U.S. economy and lower interest rates could foster a surge in the number of initial public offerings in 2025, building on the recent momentum, a top executive at the New York Stock Exchange said on Wednesday.

The change of guard at the Securities and Exchange Commission may also streamline the process to go public, potentially easing the burden for private companies weighing IPOs, the exchange’s vice president of listings and services, Chris Taylor, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.

“There are certainly a lot of companies that are thinking about accessing public markets. Interest rates for the time being have stabilized. There’s a lot of confidence trickling within the U.S. right now,” Taylor said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The comments illustrate growing optimism in corporate boardrooms, where executives are moving forward with their IPO plans after a prolonged period of uncertainty.

An expected wave of deregulation and corporate tax cuts under the Trump administration has also boosted sentiment. 

Genesys, an AI-driven developer of call center software, and Sweden’s payments giant Klarna are among the heavyweights expected to go public in the U.S. in the next few months.

PRIVATE FOR LONGER

While the IPO market is showing signs of recovery, some of the most high-profile startups such as OpenAI and SpaceX have preferred to stay private for longer, raising money from venture capital investors instead.

Critics say the reluctance to list stems from the costly and cumbersome paperwork associated with an IPO.

Taylor said the new SEC regime could be more favorable.

“We think (public markets) are the best place for price discovery, access to capital and universal access to investment. We’re very hopeful that things will become more positive,” he said.

(Join GMF, a chat room hosted on LSEG Messenger, for live interviews: https://lseg.group/4ajdDTy)

By Hernan Nessi

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Economic activity in Argentina likely fell again in November versus the same month a year earlier, but less than the 0.7% contraction in October, a Reuters poll of market analysts on Wednesday showed.

The median forecast from 13 analysts sees economic activity shrinking 0.6% year-on-year in November, the sixth consecutive year-on-year contraction, if confirmed by officials.

Poll estimates ranged from a 3.2% contraction to 1.6% growth.

The slight improvement was driven by the key agricultural sector, analysts said, while construction continued to fare poorly.

Despite the anticipated contraction, analysts were optimistic about growth expectations for December.

“Activity comes with positive prospects for the closing of a difficult year, which saw a sharp decline and a rapid rebound, although uneven among the sectors,” said consulting firm Orlando Ferreres & Asociados.

“In 2025 we hope that the most lethargic sectors will improve, and return to economic growth, with a more uniform course of activity.”

South America’s second-biggest economy has suffered a prolonged slump, marked by one of the world’s highest rates of inflation, and only recently showed signs of clawing its way out of recession.

Earlier this month, analysts surveyed by the country’s central bank expected economic growth around 1% through the first half of 2025, speeding up to an annualized rate of 4.5% by the end of the year.

Argentina’s INDEC statistics agency is scheduled to publish economic activity data for November on Thursday afternoon (1900 GMT).

LONDON (Reuters) -Sportswear brand Puma (OTC:PMMAF) announced a cost-cutting programme on Wednesday after reporting 2024 net profit below the prior year’s level, missing its expectations.

Net profit was 282 million euros ($294 million) for the year, compared to 305 million euros in 2023, Puma said in preliminary results released after markets closed.

“While we achieved solid sales growth in 2024 and made meaningful progress on our strategic initiatives, we are not satisfied with our profitability,” said Arne Freundt, CEO of PUMA, without saying what its expectations were.

The cost-cutting programme aims to get Puma back to an earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margin of 8.5% by 2027. The EBIT margin for 2024 was 7.1%.

For the fourth quarter, a key shopping period, Puma reported sales grew by 9.8% in currency-adjusted terms, to 2.289 billion euros ($2.38 billion).

Over 2024 as a whole, sales were up by 4.4% in currency-adjusted terms, to 8.817 billion euros.

($1 = 0.9602 euros)

LONDON (Reuters) – British finance minister Rachel Reeves has forced out the chairman of the country’s competition watchdog, saying he did not agree with her views on how to speed up the country’s slow-moving economy.

Here is an explanation of the decision to remove Marcus Bokkerink from the Competition and Markets Authority and replace him on an interim basis with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s former boss in Britain, Doug Gurr.

WHY HAS REEVES FORCED OUT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE CMA?

Reeves, under pressure to meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s 2024 election promise of faster economic growth, last week told Britain’s regulators they must come up with policies that do not place too big a burden on companies.

Competition lawyers said her move to replace the CMA chair told U.S. tech firms and other investors that Britain was willing to approve big takeover deals that might previously have been rejected, a push that has been given new urgency by U.S. President Donald Trump’s purge of rules for business.

In 2023, the CMA blocked Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s $69 billion purchase of video game company Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI). Microsoft President Brad Smith said Britain was “bad for business”, before the regulator backed down and approved the deal.

HOW DOES COMPETITION POLICY AFFECT ECONOMIC GROWTH?

The role of competition watchdogs does not directly affect economic growth in the short term, which is more influenced by factors such as consumers’ purchasing power and government spending.

But the decisions of regulators on mergers and ensuring competition in sectors such as technology, pharmaceuticals and retail send important signals to investors about the ease of doing business in an individual country and its attractiveness for investment, priorities for Britain’s government.

WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC RISKS FROM ALLOWING MORE DEALS?

Without takeover restrictions, some markets are likely to have too few businesses for effective competition, pushing up prices and reducing incentives for innovation.

The CMA has estimated that its merger decisions – for example, blocking a tie-up of supermarkets Sainsbury (LON:SBRY)’s and Asda – saved British consumers an average of 685 million pounds ($846 million) a year over the past three years.

Innovation is less likely when it is hard for smaller players to compete, though the CMA says highly fragmented markets make it harder for firms to finance investment too.

Sectors that rely on one or two suppliers can also lead to fragile supply chains, as shown by the 2021 shortage of chips used in the car industry.

WHAT ELSE IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING TO BOOST GROWTH?

Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised voters his government would deliver the fastest economic growth in the Group of Seven rich economies. Just four days after July’s election, Reeves set out plans to streamline planning rules that have slowed house building and infrastructure projects.

She also intends to increase public investment compared with the previous government’s plans and has pressured financial regulators to do more to encourage growth.

However, a more than 25 billion pound tax increase for businesses announced in her Oct. 30 budget appears to have weighed on the economy, in the short term at least, with firms scaling back their hiring and investment plans.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Paul Ryan, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, praised President Donald Trump’s choices for economic personnel and stressed the importance of managing the nation’s growing debt.

The U.S. administration was “off to a good start, with first-round draft picks in the economic policy roles,” Ryan, vice chairman of strategy and communications firm Teneo, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Trump faces the prospect of investors, known as bond vigilantes, becoming a potent check on his policy agenda, according to several former U.S. and foreign policymakers.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds has risen about a percentage point from a September low.

“There could be a hiccup in the bond market down the road — I’m sure that’s at the front of Scott Bessent’s mind,” Ryan said, referring to Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Central Bank interest rates will keep falling as policymakers are confident that inflation will stabilise at the bank’s 2% target, Finnish central bank chief Olli Rehn said on Wednesday.

“We are now confident that inflation will stabilise at the target as predicted and monetary policy will stop being restrictive in the near future,” Rehn said in a speech in Oulu, Finland.

Rehn noted that markets expect the ECB’s deposit rate to ease from 3% to 2% by the end of the year but stopped short of endorsing these expectations, merely arguing that rates will fall and the pace will de determined meeting by meeting.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A local chapter of the far-right Alternative for Germany party said on Wednesday its account had been terminated by the cooperative bank where it keeps its money, describing the move as part of the election campaign against it.

When contacted by Reuters, Volksbank Duesseldorf-Neuss said it would not comment on any customer relationships.

The AfD continues to run a strong second in the polls ahead of the Feb. 23 national election and analysts say Donald Trump’s return to the White House could give the anti-immigration, anti-Islam party a further boost.

Analysts say it is unlikely to gain power due to the other parties’ “firewall” – a refusal to work with a party they regard as anti-democratic. But some politicians from other parties have called for a tougher response to the AfD, even an outright ban.

The German electoral system makes it almost impossible to form a government without a coalition of parties.

The Duesseldorf branch of the AfD party posted a letter on its social media channel in which it was told by Volksbank Duesseldorf-Neuss that its account would be closed.

“We are making use of our right under our general conditions of business to end our business relationship from March 31,” the bank said in the letter, without giving a more specific reason for its move.

This is not the first such case.

Last year, the Berlin Volksbank closed the AfD’s donations account after 33,000 people signed a petition started by “Grandmas against the Right”, an anti-fascist activist group.

“Debanking is a curious way of campaigning,” the AfD’s Duesseldorf branch said on Telegram. Its campaign will not necessarily be affected since the party has until the end of March, more than a month after election day, to make alternative arrangements.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian government officials on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitment to balancing public accounts, as financial markets continue to question the ability of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration to meet its fiscal targets.

Lula’s chief of staff, Rui Costa, and Treasury Secretary Rogerio Ceron spoke out in favor of fiscal balance, opening the door for potential new spending containment measures if needed to achieve previously set goals.

The government says it likely ended last year with a deficit of 0.1% of gross domestic product, within its zero-deficit target that had a tolerance margin of 0.25% of GDP in either direction.

However, uncertainties regarding the achievement of fiscal targets in the coming years and analysts’ projections pointing to a rising debt trajectory have weighed on market sentiment, contributing to recent weakness in Brazil’s currency.

“The president has reaffirmed and has been fulfilling his commitment to fiscal balance,” Costa said in an interview with state-run broadcaster TV Brasil.

“When needed, at any time, we will make the necessary adjustments so that the fiscal commitment is met. The government can only spend what it collects, otherwise it generates inflation and bad expectations for the country.”

A long-anticipated package of spending cuts disappointed markets late last year, further weakening Brazil’s real, which weighed on inflation expectations and contributed to the central bank’s monetary policy tightening.

Itau economists noted on Tuesday that the credibility of the government’s fiscal framework for generating sustainable fiscal trajectories in the medium term, even if strictly adhered to, had “deteriorated significantly.”

That was due to the perception that the rule does not offer the prospect of stabilizing public debt unless there is a significant increase in revenues, they said in a report, while noting that the risk of non-compliance had increased.

But Ceron questioned market views and, echoing Costa, reiterated the government’s commitment to the fiscal rules.

“Our greatest divergence with the market is that it believes there is still a large gap for us to be able to meet the fiscal target this year, so new measures would be needed,” Ceron told radio station Gaucha.

“But the targets will be met. If measures are needed, they will be taken. Our commitment to meeting fiscal targets is guaranteed. They will be achieved, just like we achieved them in 2024.”

($1 = 6.0028 reais)