Hungary's Central Bank said on Thursday repeated "attacks" by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government on its monetary policy could backfire and limit the scope for easing, Reuters reported. Orban and his former ally, central bank Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy, have been involved in an increasingly bitter policy spat since a 2022 election, with the sides trading blame over a surge in inflation to the highest levels in the European Union.

Rene Benko’s ailing property group Signa is close to selling a building in downtown Munich to German construction tycoon Alfons Doblinger, in what would be the first major asset sale since its main units filed for insolvency in December, Bloomberg News reported. Signa Prime and its insolvency administrator are in direct talks with the 80 year-old entrepreneur over the sale of Rosenstrasse 8 in Munich’s main shopping area. The building has been marketed for about €100 million ($109 million).

A builder who became insolvent ­following the construction sector crash in the late 2000s has had more than €2.2m in debt written off in return for a lump-sum payment of €80,000, the Irish Independent reported. Under a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) approved by the High Court, David Lawlor (60) will be able to retain his family home, which was in negative equity. The court heard Mr Lawlor, a separated farmer and maintenance worker from Dragoon Hill, Hollywood, Co Wicklow, had overall debts of €2.7m.

Retail sales growth in the U.K. slowed in February, when consumer demand was damped by record rainfall, according to a British Retail Consortium report, the Wall Street Journal reported. Total retail sales for the four weeks to Feb. 24 increased by 1.1% on year, compared with annual 1.2% growth the prior month and the three-month average of 1.4%, according to the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor report published Tuesday. Annual growth stood at 5.2% in February last year.

Activity in the Republic of Ireland’s services sector expanded again in February but the growth was accompanied “by rising price pressures”, AIB has said, the Irish Times reported. The bank’s latest purchasing managers index for services rose to 54.4 last month, up from 50.5 in January, signalling the fastest rate of expansion in six months. Any figure above 50 indicates expansion. The increased level of activity, however, was accompanied by a worrying uptick with input prices and charges rising at the fastest rates in 10 and 12 months respectively.

The number of bankruptcies to occur in the Netherlands this year will probably rise, credit insurer Allianz Trade predicts, NLTimes.nl reported. "No other European country has experienced an increase so quickly," says Johan Geeroms, the risk director for the Benelux region. "The increase in bankruptcies is a serious warning sign. Last year, we called the 52% increase a catch-up from coronavirus, but an addition of 31% will join them this year," he added.

The European gravure printing market has been dealt a further blow after Germany’s Tiefdruck Schwann-Bagel (TSB) filed for insolvency just five months after being acquired by another continental group, Print Week reported. France headquartered Riccobono Group became Europe’s biggest gravure printer when it took over TSB last autumn. The deal involved reducing the number of gravure presses from six to four and a restructure that cut 78 jobs. Despite the downsizing, TSB filed an application to open insolvency proceedings with the district court in Mönchengladbach last week.

Deutsche Bank is preparing a liquidation lawsuit in Hong Kong against Chinese developer Shimao Group, two sources said, in a rare move by a foreign firm that comes amid rising credit defaults and China's deepening property sector crisis, Reuters reported. Shanghai-based Shimao is among the many Chinese developers that have defaulted on offshore bonds, after it missed the interest and principal payment for a $1 billion offshore bond in July, 2022.

Swedish bankruptcies jumped 29% in 2023 to the highest level since the 1990s, when the bursting of a property bubble crippled the Nordic nation’s banking system, Bloomberg News reported. This may just be the tip of the iceberg in the wake of persistently high inflation and interest rates, according to UC, a credit reference agency that compiled the data. In December, bankruptcies increased overall by 23% from a year earlier, it said.

A group of bondholders in Essity AB are asking for their money back after arguing the Swedish personal care products maker has defaulted on its debt, Bloomberg News reported. The creditors sent a letter to the company last month saying it had breached a so-called cessation of business clause in its bonds by agreeing to sell its majority stake in tissue maker Vinda International Holdings Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter. That followed the firm signing an “irrevocable undertaking” in December to sell its 51.6% ownership of Vinda to Indonesian tycoon Sukanto Tanoto.