Welcome to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Daily Briefing. It's Friday, Aug. 8. In today's briefing, President Trump’s tariff war has already cost global automakers nearly $12 billion, and the strain may continue for years amid trade pressures and the slow, expensive process of adapting supply chains. And Trump signed executive orders to reshape banking and finance, including one that would ease access for Americans to invest retirement savings in private-market assets such as private equity and private debt.

President Trump’s tariff war has inflicted almost $12 billion of losses on global automakers, the biggest hit they have faced since the pandemic. The scary reality: This may be just the beginning.

Beyond the continuing cost of tariffs, automakers in the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Europe face years of retooling and supply-chain tweaks to adjust to the new realities. This comes after they spent heavily to reshape factories for electric vehicles.

The obvious responses to tariffs are to raise prices and move production to the U.S. But both are hard for carmakers to do quickly, potentially saddling them for years to come.

• Toyota Motor reported a drop in first-quarter net profit and cut its annual profit forecast due to U.S. tariffs, expecting a $9.5 billion hit from levies. The Japanese carmaker said Thursday that net profit fell 37% from a year earlier to 841.345 billion yen, equivalent to $5.71 billion, for the three months ended June. That beat the estimate of ¥775.40 billion in a poll of analysts by data provider Quick.

President Trump’s tariff policies have taken numerous twists and turns this year. The latest: imposing tariffs on scores of nations starting Aug. 7.

President Trump signed a pair of executive orders Thursday intended to reshape the world of banking and high finance—some in ways Wall Street likes, and others it feared.

One order seeks to make it easier for everyday Americans to invest their retirement savings in assets that lie outside public markets, such as private equity, cryptocurrency and private real estate.

Captivision is exploring strategic options for its wholly owned Korean subsidiary as part of a strategic transformation of the company.

The changes are intended to optimize capital allocation and accelerate growth in the high-value LED solutions markets, the company said Thursday.

Captivision is exploring a number of alternatives, including divestiture, strategic combination and restructuring. The company is seeking to move to a more streamlined, asset-light operational model. After an extensive review, management determined the Korean operations represented a legacy business structure that was diverting capital and management resources from core high-growth opportunities, the company said.

The Miami-based, company wants to focus its energy and resources on high-margin, technology-driven solutions. As part of that, it wants to accelerate its expansion in sports, entertainment and commercial LED applications. Captivision said the change will improve return on invested capital and enhance agility in responding to market opportunities. —Stephen Nakrosis

U.S. battery startup Lyten has agreed to buy the remaining European assets of bankrupt Swedish battery maker Northvolt.

Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in March after it failed to secure the financial backing needed to continue operating, but the bankruptcy trustee revealed in June that three possible buyers had been found, including a foreign investor that had bid to take over the entire operation.

Northvolt has continued to operate since its bankruptcy, but on a scaled-down basis, after the bankruptcy trustee reached an agreement in principle with key stakeholders earlier this year. Parts of the business have already been sold off, including its heavy industry business to Scania and a Swedish battery plant to joint venture partner Volvo Car.

Lyten, a Silicon Valley startup developing lithium-sulfur batteries which are seen as more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries, is backed by auto giant Stellantis, logistics provider FedEx and industrial conglomerate Honeywell, among others.

It said late Thursday it has agreed to buy Northvolt's main factory and research and development facility which are both located in Sweden, as well as the site of a future so-called gigafactory in Germany and all intellectual property.

The price Lyten has paid wasn't disclosed, but it confirmed the acquisition includes assets valued at around $5 billion.

"Lyten's mission is to be the leading supplier of clean, locally sourced and manufactured batteries and energy storage systems in both North America and Europe," Lyten Chief Executive and Co-Founder Dan Cook said in a statement.

"The acquisition of Northvolt's assets brings the facilities and Swedish talent to accelerate this mission by years."

The company plans to rehire a significant portion of the previously laid-off workforce and will assess staffing needs site by site as it restarts and scales operations.

Northvolt had a workforce of around 5,500 when it filed for bankruptcy and the previous deal to continue operating on a scaled-down basis meant around 1,700 workers stayed on in Sweden.

Lyten expects to immediately restart operations at the Swedish sites upon closing and is working with the German government to continue developing the site there. Talks with Canadian officials are also continuing, as it pursues the acquisition of Northvolt's North American gigafactory under construction in Quebec.

The startup had previously announced the acquisition of Northvolt's battery manufacturing facility in California, its battery energy storage system manufacturing facility in Poland and its battery energy storage system product and intellectual property portfolio.

Founded in 2015, Lyten has received more than $625 million in equity investment and secured letters of intent for $650 million in financing from the Export Import Bank of the U.S. — Dominic Chopping

An increasing number of borrowers are falling behind on both their student-debt and mortgage payments—a development that’s worrying economists about the state of the housing sector and the broader U.S. economy.

Student-loan delinquencies are rising sharply, as are delinquencies on mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

• A U.S. bankruptcy trustee who spots possible criminal conduct like tax fraud or concealment of assets is required by law to refer it to law enforcement agencies. That’s often the last anyone hears of it. (Bloomberg)

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