Scandinavian airline SAS AB will cancel and redeem all of its common shares and commercial hybrid bonds when it emerges from chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. around June, Bloomberg News reported. “SAS reiterates its expectation that there will be only a modest recovery for general unsecured creditors, no recovery for subordinated creditors and no value for SAS AB’s existing shareholders,” the carrier said in a statement released at 11 p.m. Stockholm time on Tuesday.

The European Central Bank has asked some banks to closely monitor activity on social media to detect a worsening in sentiment which could lead to a deposit run, two banking executives with knowledge of the request told Reuters. European regulators have sharpened scrutiny of banks' liquidity after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse in March last year, the people said, requesting anonymity because the discussions are private. Banks can run into financial trouble if clients rush to pull deposits at the same time.

The European Union is unlikely to confiscate Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe, despite G7 plans to discuss the legality of such a move at a meeting in February, senior EU officials said, Reuters reported. The EU, United States, Japan and Canada froze some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Some $200 billion of that is held in Europe, mainly in the Belgian clearing house Euroclear. The discussion comes as U.S. President Joe Biden faces Republican opposition to his request for another $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.

British electric-vehicle company Arrival is heading closer to insolvency after lining up a new set of advisers to oversee contingency planning, Sky News reported on Monday. The company is in talks with accounting firm EY about acting as administrator if it cannot secure rescue funding, the report added. EV firms that went public in the SPAC boom during the pandemic capitalized on strong demand from investors looking for the next Tesla. However, high interest rates, inflation, supply chain issues and production struggles have sapped their cash balances with few or no vehicles on roads.

Romania is tapping international markets for the first time in 2024 to take advantage of high demand for emerging-market debt after its regional peers went ahead with euro and dollar offerings to fund their budget deficits, Bloomberg News reported.

The Danish company Nordic Waste has triggered a political scandal by filing for bankruptcy, EuroNews reported. The bankruptcy of the company - which deals with the reprocessing of contaminated soil - could cost taxpayers €27 million. After they post their bankruptcy filing, the Danish state will likely have to pay for the clean-up work required after a mega landslide at a reprocessing plant for contaminated soil. At the beginning of the week, the Ministry of the Environment issued interim injunctions against Nordic Waste. After that ruling, the company declared bankruptcy.

More than 47,000 UK companies are on the brink of collapse after a 25% jump in the number of businesses facing “critical” financial distress in the final three months of 2023, according to a report, The Guardian reported. It marks the second consecutive quarter-on-quarter period when critical financial distress has risen by a 25%, the latest “Red Flag” report by insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor found. The construction and property sectors accounted for 30% of all businesses facing critical financial distress.

Cheshire East Council in the United Kingdom is not at risk of going “bankrupt”, said its finance sub-committee chair, the Nantwitch News reported. And if it did ever have to trigger a S114 notice suppliers and staff would be paid, claims Cllr Nick Mannion. He was speaking at the corporate policy committee where the council’s finances were being discussed. He congratulated officers on bringing down the predicted end-of-year overspend to £13m at the end of quarter three – it had been forecast at £18.7m at the end of the second quarter of the financial year.

Private jets were a rare pandemic winner in the otherwise decimated travel business. Now that they are coming back down to earth, one heavily indebted operator could give the industry a hard landing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Based in Malta, privately owned VistaJet grew at breakneck speed after 2019 to become the world’s second-largest flier of private jets.

The company behind Signa’s flagship high-rise development in Hamburg filed for insolvency, further challenging efforts to restructure René Benko’s property empire, Bloomberg News reported. The company developing the 245 meter (800 feet) Elbtower notified the city of its request for creditor protection Friday, according to a statement from the municipality’s authority for urban development and housing.