Paperchase, the high street stationery retailer, is close to collapsing into administration as hopes of a solvent rescue deal fade. Sky News understands the chain's parent company could appoint insolvency practitioners from Begbies Traynor as soon as Tuesday. Paperchase's shareholders remain in discussions with more than one potential buyer, although insiders said that a sale of the business was now focused on a pre-pack deal, which involves a company's assets being sold immediately after it has fallen into administration.

Europe’s economy is showing signs it may avoid a recession this winter, even as it continues to cope with persistent inflation, rising interest rates and a war in Ukraine that shows no signs of abating, the New York Times reported. On Tuesday, the region’s statistics agency said the eurozone economy grew 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2022, compared with the previous quarter. The data came hours after the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for economic growth in the countries that use the euro to 0.7 percent in 2023, from a prediction of 0.5 percent made in October.

Three years after its departure from the European Union, Britain is yet to benefit from the Brexit dividend that was promised for its economy as it lags its peers on multiple fronts, including trade and investment, Reuters reported. Britain exited the EU on Jan. 31, 2020, though remained in the bloc's single market and customs union for 11 more months. On that day, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the country could finally fulfil its potential and that he hoped it would grow in confidence with each passing month.

French workers are taking to the streets for the second time in two weeks, piling more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron‘s plans to raise France’s retirement age and threatening further walkouts that could grind much of the country to a halt, the Wall Street Journal reported. Striking teachers and railway, health and oil workers are staging marches in dozens of cities as a part of a nationwide day of action called by unions to force the government to back down from its pension overhaul.

Norway's wealth fund, one of the world's largest investors, posted a record loss of 1.64 trillion crowns ($164.4 billion) for 2022, bringing to an end a three-year run of soaring profits as stocks and bonds were hit by the Ukraine war and inflation, Reuters reported. The previous largest loss was 633 billion crowns in 2008. It ends a record-breaking streak for the fund, where annual returns exceeded one trillion crowns in each of the three years from 2019 to 2021, amounting to more than four trillion crowns combined. "We are invested in 9,000 companies in 70 countries.

The Charity Commission has launched an inquiry into UK-based Effective Ventures Foundation over its ties to bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Bloomberg News reported. The Oxford, Oxfordshire-based charity had reported the FTX bankruptcy as a “serious incident”, as FTX’s philanthropic foundation had been a major funder of Effective Ventures, according to a statement Monday by the Charity Commission. The commission said there is “no indication of wrongdoing” by the charity’s trustees.

The German economy unexpectedly shrank in the fourth quarter, data showed on Monday, a sign that Europe's largest economy may be entering a much-predicted recession, though likely a shallower one than originally feared, Reuters reported. Gross domestic product decreased 0.2% quarter on quarter in adjusted terms, the federal statistics office said. A Reuters poll of analysts had forecast the economy would stagnate. In the previous quarter, the German economy grew by an upwardly revised 0.5% versus the previous three months.

Euro zone economic sentiment rose to a seven-month high in January on more optimism across all sectors except construction, with inflation expectations among consumers and companies both sharply down, data showed on Monday, Reuters reported. The European Commission's Economic Sentiment Index (ESI) rose to 99.9 this month, above an upwardly revised 97.1 in December -- the highest value of the index since June 2022.

Spanish inflation unexpectedly quickened in January after a five-month run of slowing price growth, prompting traders to boost their bets on how high the European Central Bank will raise interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices advanced by 5.8% from a year ago, up from the previous month’s 5.5% increase, the statistics institute in Madrid said Monday. That’s well above the 4.8% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, though the predictions ranged from 3.8% to 6.5%.

Flybe ceased trading on Saturday, marking the struggling British regional airline's second collapse in three years, with all flights canceled and 276 workers made redundant, the Daily Sabah reported. The airline initially slumped into bankruptcy in March 2020, shedding 2,400 jobs, as coronavirus restrictions decimated the travel industry. However, it relaunched in April last year, flying many of the same routes out of Belfast, Birmingham and London Heathrow.