Struggling Finnish retailer Stockmann said on Monday it had sold its main department store and head office building in the heart of Helsinki to Finnish pension provider Keva for 400 million euros ($442 million) to pay off debts, Nasdaq.com reported. The 159-year-old retailer initiated a restructuring programme last year to avoid bankruptcy, after struggling for years with debt accumulated from earlier expansions and a consumer shift to online shopping.

Taxpayer-backed satellite firm OneWeb has announced it will resume launches after a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, GrampianOnline.co reported. OneWeb canceled a planned launch of 36 broadband satellites earlier this month because it would have used Russian Soyuz rockets and been overseen by the Russian space agency. The firm has now done a deal with SpaceX, and the first launch is anticipated later this year. The move will allow the firm to resume its plans to add further satellites to its constellation in low earth orbit.

Global equity markets gained on Friday after traders cheered a Russian bond payment that averted a historic sovereign default, while gold prices dropped as demand for the safe-haven metal eased following the start of the U.S. interest rate hike cycle, Reuters reported. The Russian finance ministry announced on Thursday that it had sent funds to cover $117 million in coupon payments on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds that came due this week.

Russian oil market participants have switched their trading tactics, favoring private deals over public offerings due to new Western sanctions, traders said on Thursday, Reuters reported. About a quarter of Russian oil exports, including flagship Urals and ESPO Blend oil grades, is usually sold on a spot basis, normally via public tenders in which a number of companies generally have been invited. As of March 17, Russian oil companies haven't issued any spot tenders for May ESPO Blend, which would normally be offered in tenders by this time.

As foreign companies seek to exit Russia over the war in Ukraine, they face the prospect that Russian bankruptcy law could be used to seize assets and even lead to criminal penalties, Reuters reported. Here is how that could work. In the U.S., bankruptcy laws are meant to give indebted companies a fresh start. Distressed companies in the U.S. usually enter bankruptcy willingly, and the law lets them retain existing management and control over assets. Russia's law, however, generally prioritizes the needs of creditors who are owed money.

The European Central Bank will take action if it sees second-round inflation effects and a de-anchoring of medium-term inflation expectations, European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos told German newspaper Handelsblatt, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, the ECB accelerated its exit from unconventional stimulus, and investors have been ramping up their bets on higher ECB rates. De Guindos told Handelsblatt that second-round effects and de-anchoring of price expectations would be "deciding factors" for the central bank. "If we see those, then we will act," he said.

Western companies that maintain a presence in Russia to provide essential goods such as food and medicines are trying to strike a balance between President Vladimir Putin's government and advocates of Ukraine pulling them in opposite directions, Reuters reported. More than 400 companies have withdrawn from Russia since the launch of its attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to a list compiled by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management.

A truck drivers' strike for better working conditions has caused disruptions at some supermarkets and certain industries in Spain, with dairy food producers complaining on Thursday of some supply shortages as they received less milk, Reuters reported.

Some creditors have received payment, in dollars, of Russian bond coupons that fell due this week, two market sources said on Thursday, meaning Russia may for now have averted what would have been its first external bond default in a century, Reuters reported. The Russian finance ministry said earlier that it had sent funds to cover $117 million in coupon payments on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Tomislav Pili writes, Russian bankruptcy, which is increasingly likely to occur soon, will not be felt by the Croatian financial system, and global finances should not be shaken by such a scenario either, according to Croatian analysts, Croatia News reported. After announcing on Monday that the Russian Ministry of Finance will pay out interest to foreign investors in rubles instead of dollars, the story coming out of Moscow altered Russia's state treasury has announced an order has been sent to pay 117.2 million U.S.