Denmark

Denmark registered a surge in inflation in July, driven by a sharp rise in the cost of food, drink, restaurants and hotels, pushing the country’s consumer price index above its eurozone’s peers, the Financial Times reported. The leap from 0.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent in year-on-year inflation makes this the highest rate since December 2012 in a country where price rises have long been subdued with the help of its currency peg. Denmark’s central bank targets inflation at close to but below 2 per cent.

Denmark's state prosecutor charged the former manager of OW Bunker's Singapore subsidiary with fraud on Thursday but cleared the Danish management of the failed marine fuel oil supplier of any criminal wrongdoing. OW Bunker filed for bankruptcy in Denmark in November 2014 after losses at its Singapore business Dynamic Oil Trading, a marked change of fortunes for a firm valued at $1 billion when it listed in March that year, Reuters reported.

AP Moller-Maersk on Wednesday unveiled one of the biggest losses in Danish corporate history as the conglomerate suffered from a weak container shipping industry and massive writedowns on its oil businesses last year, the Financial Times reported. Shares in Maersk fell as much as 7 per cent on Wednesday as it reported only its second annual loss in seven decades and halved its dividend to try to protect its investment grade credit rating.

Danish conglomerate A.P. Møller-Mærsk A/S isn’t likely to move to buy either Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. or Hanjin Shipping Co. contrary to industry speculation that it would take over either one or both of the troubled Korean cargo ship operators, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. Instead, the company is likely to wait for other distressed operators to seek buyout deals as they try to avoid bankruptcy, the people said.

Denmark’s biggest mortgage bank is reminding homeowners that a seemingly unstoppable series of price gains can end, and even go into reverse, the Irish Times reported. Chief analyst at Nykredit, Mira Lie Nielsen, says Danish people need to put the possibility of house-price declines “on their radars” or risk going into “shell shock when it happens”. “Our expectation isn’t that home prices will fall in the near future, but it’s important to say, again and again, that especially apartment prices can also fall,” Nielsen said in an email.

Tor Krussell of Altor says that there is no evidence that the OW Bunker Board made any decisions that led to the bankruptcy, ShipandBunker.com reported today. Swedish private equity fund Altor, former owner of now defunct OW Bunker, says that while the company's advisors have yet to examine a new 400 page report released as part of OW Bunker's bankruptcy proceedings, it notes that from its own investigations, OW Bunker's management was not responsible for the company's demise.

Drug maker Lundbeck will slash costs by 3 billion Danish crowns ($444.6 million) and cut 1,000 jobs in a bid to regain profitability, the company announced on Wednesday. The Danish firm, which appointed a new chief executive last May, sells drugs to treat depression and other brain diseases, but several key patents have expired in recent years, leading to a slump in revenues.

In recent weeks Denmark’s fixed exchange-rate regime has come under extreme strain, as moves by the European Central Bank have caused the value of the euro to plummet, the International New York Times reported. That has led to grave concern here, as speculators bet that Denmark’s currency peg to the euro will break, giving them outsize profits on the Danish assets they hold as the crown rises in value. For the Danes, however, breaking the crown-euro peg could be an economic catastrophe.

Privately-owned shipping company Copenship has filed for bankruptcy in Copenhagen after losses in the dry bulk market, its Chief Executive Michael Fenger told Reuters. Copenship had been operating over 50 chartered small-sized dry-bulk vessels carrying goods such as grain, iron ore and timber. "We have done what we could to raise the funds to save the company, but we have reached a point where there is not more to do," Michael Fenger wrote in a text message to Reuters on Wednesday.

OW Tanker, a unit of bankrupt OW Bunker and owner of its marine fuel supply ships, has been taken over by a newly-created company, the fleet manager told Reuters on Wednesday. OW Bunker, the largest ship fuel supplier in the world, collapsed earlier this month after it said it had lost almost $300 million in hedging losses and unauthorised credit lines given in Singapore. Henrik Pedersen said the takeover by Alba Tanker ApS, which has the trustees of the bankrupt company on its board, is part of the process of securing assets for the estate.