The Covid-19 pandemic has put small businesses under considerable financial strain relative to larger companies, with the shock to their turnover creating significant cash-flow challenges in some sectors, Central Bank deputy governor Ed Sibley said at a Small Firms Association webinar on Wednesday, The Irish Times reported. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are operating in a very difficult and uncertain environment, despite interventions to cushion the effects of the crisis, Mr Sibley said.

Services companies in Italy and Spain suffered a fresh fall in activity last month as restrictions to contain the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit businesses, according to a widely watched business survey, the Financial Times reported. The IHS Markit flash services purchasing managers’ index dropped in both countries, with companies reporting sharp declines in demand and activity as a result of the pandemic, data released on Wednesday showed. The Spanish index was slightly better than most economists expected but still fell 1 point to a five-month low of 41.4 in October.

A resurgence of the pandemic is threatening to tip the eurozone into a double-dip recession, cutting short the recovery that took shape from the middle of this year, the Financial Times reported. Few if any economists expect a slump as severe as the 11.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter contraction recorded between April and June. But services, which account for about three-quarters of economic activity in the 19-nation eurozone, are bearing the brunt of the tight restrictions on people’s movement that governments are reimposing in an effort to control Covid-19.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has criticised Germany’s financial regulator BaFin and the country’s accounting watchdog FREP for their “deficient” handling of the Wirecard accounting scandal. In a report published on Tuesday, in which the regulator detailed the result of its investigation into the Wirecard accounting fraud, Esma wrote that BaFin and FREP ignored red flags over Wirecard’s financial reporting for years, the Financial Times reported.

A sufficient number of creditors of indebted Premier Oil have approved a proposed merger with private equity backed Chrysaor to create the British North Sea's biggest oil and gas producer, Premier said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The reverse takeover, which will see Premier’s creditors paid $1.23 billion (947.9 million pounds) in cash, will fold one of the world’s oldest independent producers into a private equity-backed group in which Premier shareholders will receive an expected 5.45% stake. Premier had $1.9 billion in net debt.

With the pandemic having pushed any talk of austerity to the sidelines, the race is on in Europe to spend its economies out of recession and back to some semblance of normality, Reuters reported. While the total cash being thrown at the challenge amounts to trillions of euros, that masks deep national differences between the amount and type of aid on offer.

Apparel retailer Esprit announced Sunday the insolvency plans it developed for its six German subsidiaries have been approved by creditors and confirmed by the Dusseldorf court, FashionUnited reported. The process allows “a complete restart for the group” enabled by substantial debt forgiveness for the six German subsidiaries. The company said that after the final and official conclusion of the proceedings, expected by the end of the month, Esprit “will go back to normal operations”.

Lazard Ltd has hired restructuring banker Sam Whittaker from PJT Partners to oversee negotiations between companies and their creditors across Europe, the Middle East and Africa as a second wave of COVID-19 leaves many businesses fighting for survival, Reuters reported. Whittaker, who started his banking career at Lazard in 2005 and then moved to fellow investment bank PJT in 2015, will re-join Lazard as a London-based managing director in its EMEA restructuring franchise.

Like the coronavirus crisis itself, the response of the world’s governments has been on a scale never seen before, the Financial Times reported. The IMF estimates that fiscal spending and tax cuts worldwide add up to more than $11.7tn so far, on top of a monetary policy response in which trillions of dollars have been pumped into the global financial system by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. Old policy prescriptions have been torn up. Once the guardian of austerity, the IMF has urged countries to spend as much as possible.

Bounty, the parenting club which has distributed samples of baby products to generations of new mums, is on the brink of insolvency after seeing one of its main revenue streams cut off by the coronavirus pandemic, Sky News reported. Sky News has learnt that Bounty is preparing to confirm a pre-pack administration later this week that will result in as many as 300 redundancies. Sources said that Bounty's current owner and chief executive, Alan Charming Chan, was expected to buy its sampling and consumer marketing division from Alvarez & Marsal, the prospective administrator.