Thames Water asked regulators to help it avoid massive fines after it was downgraded to junk by Moody’s Ratings, adding to the financial pressure on Britain’s biggest water supplier, Bloomberg News reported. Plans proposed this month by regulator Ofwat would make it harder for the struggling utility to raise new equity, Moody’s said Wednesday in cutting its rating on the company and its top-ranked bonds.
Resources Per Country
- Albania
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
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German consumers offered a brighter picture of their incomes this year, as inflation ticks down and the European soccer tournament in the country offered a boost, a monthly survey said, the Wall Street Journal reported. The forward-looking consumer-climate index for Germany, published Wednesday by research group GfK and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions, forecasts confidence to rise 3.2 points to minus 18.4 points in August. That was a little better than the consensus of minus 20.8 from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
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Britain's information watchdog has rejected a Reuters appeal to identify lenders who have lost or surrendered state guarantees on millions of pounds of COVID-19 emergency loans, citing potential harm to their commercial interests, Reuters reported. Reuters revealed in November that government guarantees on about 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) of pandemic-era loans to stricken businesses had been scrapped, based on data obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the British Business Bank (BBB), which oversees the emergency lending schemes.
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One of the major German furniture retailers, Opti-Wohnwelt, is facing financial difficulties, Aussiedlerbote.de reported. The company has filed an application for insolvency proceedings in Self-Administration at the Schweinfurt District Court, Opti announced. The court has granted the application. Lawyer Stefan Debus has been appointed as trustee. "The application for Self-Administration was not an easy one for us," said Managing Director Oliver Foest.
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Portuguese paper merchant Inapa – Investimentos, Participações e Gestão, S.A. (Inapa IPG) said that it would present the company to insolvency under Portuguese law after its German subsidiary filed for insolvency on 22 July 2024, EUWID-Paper.com reported. The German subsidiary Inapa Deutschland had a short-term cash shortage of €12m, for which no financing solution was found within the period established in accordance with German law, the company explained in a statement.
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About a year-and-a-half after the collapse of crypto-friendly banks in the US, European players are pushing to reinvigorate the market for around-the-clock payments in the digital-asset sector, Bloomberg News reported. A pair of Swiss lenders — AMINA Bank AG and Sygnum Bank AG — have debuted real-time payment and settlement networks in recent weeks. They are targeting a gap in the market left by the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) and Signature Bank’s Signet platform which, prior to their collapse in March 2023, played a crucial role in bringing liquidity to the crypto market.
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Four subsidiaries of German landlord Demire Deutsche Mittelstand Real Estate AG are filing for insolvency after failing to repay a loan, Bloomberg News reported. The property companies couldn’t reach an agreement with creditor DZ HYP AG for a standstill or orderly repayment of an €82 million ($89 million) loan that was due on June 30. The four property companies will therefore file an insolvency application, Demire said in a statement on Monday.
Sweden's Oscar Properties said on Monday that Brf Innovationen, a housing cooperative, had filed an application for the real estate firm to be declared bankrupt, citing a breach of a settlement agreement, Reuters reported. Oscar Properties said in a statement that it disputes the bankruptcy application and may seek formal restructuring in its court response. It had previously evaded bankruptcy in a similar situation, when Brf Innovationen retracted its earlier application in January after the companies reached a settlement.
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Ukraine struck a deal with creditors that could save it more than $11 billion over the next three years, a boost for the war-torn country as it scrambles to keep funding the war with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported. The preliminary deal, unveiled Monday, came after months of contentious negotiations with a committee representing Western bondholders such as BlackRock and Pimco, which had balked over how much debt relief Ukraine and its Western backers were requesting.
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England and Wales recorded the second-highest number of company insolvencies since 2009 last month, government figures showed, reflecting high interest rates and increased costs caused by rapid inflation in 2022 and 2023, Reuters reported. June saw 2,361 company insolvencies on a seasonally adjusted basis, Britain's Insolvency Service agency said, 17% more than a year earlier and the most since May 2023. The high total partly reflects an increase in the overall number of companies.
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