Europe

Shares of Pierer Mobility AG tumbled after the company said its KTM AG motorbike unit was filing for a self-administered insolvency in Austria, Bloomberg News reported. KTM will be unable to cover a “very high three-digit million euro” financing requirement, according to a statement. The company will seek to agree with creditors on a reorganization in the next 90 days. Shares slumped 45% to 6.9 Swiss francs ($7.8), heading for their biggest daily decline on record and extending a loss this year to 84%. The company owned by entrepreneur Stefan Pierer and India’s Bajaj Auto Ltd.

A seaside attraction which owes £51 million to a council that helped set it up faces “real risk of closure” as it files for insolvency, the Irish News reported. Bosses of Brighton seafront’s observation tower, Brighton i360, have announced the notification of administrators, blaming escalating costs, bad summer weather and the cost-of-living crisis as the reasons behind the decision. But Brighton and Hove City Council chiefs have said the “extremely disappointing” move will hit the council’s budget after it loaned millions to the project in 2014 and remains the biggest creditor.

Vinylrecycling, a Dutch PVC recycler previously known as BessTrade, announced it filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 19, SustainablePlastics.com reported. The recycler operates two plants within walking distance of each other in Lelystad, the Netherlands. The sites have a processing capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes/year of PVC waste and produce regrind and pellets of plasticised and rigid PVC, as well as micronised powder rPVC. Vinylrecycling is in a legal battle with the Netherlands Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) over PVC exports to third countries.

Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline lost the latest round of its legal fight against European Union gas market rules, in a largely symbolic court defeat for the now-shuttered project, Bloomberg News reported. Gazprom PJSC-controlled Nord Stream 2 should have foreseen that the bloc would use its powers to “extend the internal market rules to cover gas pipelines from third countries,” the General Court said in its re-examination of the case on Wednesday.

Germany is stuck in a period of economic weakness but central bank interest rates need to come down only gradually to make sure inflationary pressures are fully extinguished, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said on Monday, Reuters reported. The euro zone's biggest economy has been the bloc's laggard in recent years and the outlook is bleak as export demand is lacklustre, its oversized industry is in recession and consumers are proving too cautious, building up savings instead of spending cash buffers.

Denmark’s plan to tax agriculture emissions will lead to rising impairment charges for some of the nation’s financial institutions but won’t threaten financial stability, the central bank in Copenhagen said, Bloomberg News reported. A few “medium-sized” banks are most exposed to a higher risk of losses from loans to farmers, who “already have a vulnerable economy and must pay the additional tax for their CO2 emissions,” Nationalbanken said in a financial stability report on Tuesday.

Annual U.K. shop-price deflation lost steam in November, driven by higher fresh-food prices on increased winter-related costs, while retailers’ additional costs next year suggest the end of falling inflation, a report said, the Wall Street Journal reported. Prices at U.K. stores decreased 0.6% on year in November, up from deflation of 0.8% recorded in the previous month, the report by NielsenIQ and the British Retail Consortium showed Tuesday. This is the first time in 17 consecutive months that inflation was higher than the previous month.

Advent International is considering reviving the sale of Dutch medical supplier Mediq as the private equity firm looks to cash out from the business, Bloomberg News reported. The US buyout firm is speaking to potential advisers and could seek a valuation of about €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for Utrecht-based Mediq, the people said. An auction process could be launched in the first half of next year, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Deliberations are preliminary and Advent could still opt to keep the asset for longer, the people said.