Activity in Covid-19-struck Europe is thought to have leapt in the third quarter, but finance ministers meeting early next week will take little comfort from coltish-looking economic figures, the Financial Times reported.. The reason is simple — the rolling series of new restrictions that have been announced in recent days have cast a new shadow over the region's prospects, making it all but impossible to know exactly where output will go next. With Europe's caseload soaring at a vertiginous rate, Germany and France imposed new lockdown measures on Wednesday.

Banco Sabadell’s third-quarter net profit fell 77% from a year ago due to higher provisions, and the Spanish lender on Friday announced an efficiency plan, entailing yet unspecified job cuts in Spain, to counter the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. Overall loan loss provisions in the July-September period rose to 302 million euros ($357 million) from 194 million euros a year ago. Still, Spain’s fifth-largest lender beat market expectations thanks to a recovery in its banking activity, both in new mortgage and consumer lending.

After 14 years of construction and six delayed openings, Berlin’s new airport is due to welcome its first passengers on Saturday. But the timing could not be worse, Reuters reported. The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the global aviation industry into its deepest ever crisis, and recovery is not expected for at least a couple of years. That has left the new airport, originally called Berlin Brandenburg Airport but now known by its code BER, looking for extra funds to help pay its debts. Built on the site of Schoenefeld airport in former East Berlin, BER has been beset by problems.

British Land and Land Securities are among the landlords that have challenged New Look’s company voluntary arrangement, casting renewed doubt over the survival of the fashion chain, the Financial Times reported. The CVA, a type of insolvency process that usually results in landlords agreeing hefty rent cuts, was approved by creditors in September but the statutory challenge period ran until the middle of October. Three people with knowledge of the process said that there had been four separate challenges.

Growing coronavirus infection numbers are putting at risk the prospects for continued economic recovery in Italy and the euro zone as a whole, Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said on Friday, Reuters reported. In a speech to bankers in Rome, Visco, who sits on the European Central Bank’s governing council, also said the risk of deflation in the euro zone has declined compared with six months ago but must still not be ignored.

Air France-KLM unveiled a 1.05 billion-euro ($1.24 billion) quarterly operating loss and warned of worse to come as a resurgent coronavirus brings new travel curbs, Reuters reported. Shares in the Franco-Dutch airline group fell after it reported a 67% drop in third-quarter revenue to 2.52 billion euros on Friday, as France returned to full lockdown for at least a month. New COVID-19 outbreaks pose a threat to network airlines already weakened by the crisis and long-haul travel collapse.

Tax experts have warned that an incoming law which moves HM Revenue & Customs higher up the list of creditors in insolvencies could further damage the economy and cause more companies to go bust, the Financial Times reported. From December 1, the UK tax authority will be ranked higher in the pecking order used to decide which creditors get paid first when a company fails. The change applies to unpaid VAT, income tax, employee’s national insurance, student loan deductions and Construction Industry Scheme deductions, but not corporation tax.

The number of companies in significant financial distress has risen at the fastest rate for three years as businesses face increasing difficulties given the end of many government Covid-19 business support schemes, the Financial Times reported. More than half a million companies were in “significant distress” in the three months to September, based on data from court orders to pay off debts, according to corporate restructuring firm Begbies Traynor.

Demand for British retail and office space contracted sharply during the third quarter and the outlook for the year ahead has worsened as working and shopping patterns change during the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said 78% of chartered surveyors viewed the commercial property market as being in a downturn, up a little from 76% in the second quarter.

An anomaly in credit insurance on Europcar Mobility Group could prove lucrative for some traders as the French rental-car firm seeks to restructure 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of debt, Bloomberg News reported. The cost of buying Europcar’s bonds and credit-default swaps in a combined trade has risen to 110% of the notes’ face value, indicating that traders expect they’ll get more than par if the insurance pays out, according to Jochen Felsenheimer, who trades both markets as managing director at XAIA Investment GmbH. He doesn’t have a position in Europcar.