The International Monetary Fund warned European governments facing resurgent coronavirus infections not to shy away from sweeping financial support for households and businesses, Bloomberg News reported. Doing too little now will ultimately be more costly than providing too much aid, according to Alfred Kammer, director of the organization’s European Department. “Put simply: governments cannot afford not to spend,” he said in a briefing on Wednesday.

Britain’s government borrowing in the first half of the financial year was more than six times higher than before the COVID pandemic, official figures showed on Wednesday, taking public debt to its highest since 1960, Reuters reported. Public borrowing in September alone totalled 36.101 billion pounds ($46.90 billion), above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists, although August’s figure was revised down by more than 5 billion pounds to 30.113 billion pounds.

Up to 1,250 Irish businesses have been “recommended” for State-backed coronavirus loans, according to a senior official at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, The Irish Times reported. Declan Hughes, head of the department’s indigenous enterprise, SMEs and entrepreneurship division, said that as of last Friday banks operating the Government’s Covid-19 credit guarantee scheme had recommended 1,250 loans worth €64 million. Mr Hughes told the Oireachtas Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Employment that there had been “very significant interest” in the initiative.

Sweden’s Handelsbanken reported a fall in quarterly net earnings on Wednesday due to restructuring costs, though the bank’s loan portfolio continued to weather the impact of the coronavirus pandemic with ease, Reuters reported. Handelsbanken said in its report that results had been impacted by a provision for a restructuring reserve of 1.47 billion crowns referring to the branch closure and IT investment programme the bank unveiled in September.

Two Irish landlords of the liquidated Monsoon business have won a High Court challenge in which they claimed their leases to the women’s fashion stores remained in full force here despite a UK creditors arrangement, The Irish Times reported. Apperley Investments Ltd, Tailwind Investments Ltd and Martina Investments Ltd were landlords to the former Monsoon store on Dublin’s Grafton Street. RESAM Cork UC and RESAM Properties Ltd were landlords for the Monsoon store and the Accessorize store, both on Patrick Street, Cork.

The world will have a smaller airline industry as a result of the coronavirus crisis with many privately funded carriers set to go under and governments throwing "good money after bad" to keep national champions afloat, Wizz Air's CEO said, Reuters reported. Worst hit will be traditional carriers relying on a hub-and-spoke network and business traffic, but Wizz expects demand for its own cheap fares and direct routes to snap back quickly once the pandemic fades, the Hungarian airline’s co-founder said.

Petra Diamonds has abandoned plans to sell the business in favour of a debt-for-equity restructuring, it said on Tuesday, sending its shares lower because of the deal's dilutive effect on existing stakeholders, Reuters reported. The London-listed company, which mines diamonds in South Africa and Tanzania, had put itself up for sale in June as part of the restructuring process but has received no viable offers, it said.

Business groups have called for added supports for companies forced to close once again under the Government’s measures to try to suppress Covid-19 in Ireland, warning that tens of thousands of jobs are at risk, The Irish Times reported. Chamber leaders around the country have called on the Government to introduce supports for impacted businesses quickly and to use the time “wisely” to put in place the appropriate infrastructure to support local economies to re-open safely.

A month-on-month rise in the number of corporate insolvencies in England and Wales may indicate that businesses which were healthy and profitable pre-COVID-19 are now starting to struggle, East Midlands Business Link reported. This is according to the Midlands branch of insolvency and restructuring trade body R3 and comes on the back of figures published by the Government’s Insolvency Service which show that the number of companies entering insolvency increased to 926 in September 2020 compared to August’s figure of 784.

Businesses are being set up in the UK at a record rate, according to the government’s register of national corporate activity, as criminals attempting Covid-related fraud establish companies alongside entrepreneurs creating new ventures, the Financial Times reported. Senior bankers have raised concerns that criminals have formed companies to take out lightly checked government-backed loans. The National Audit Office this month warned that tens of billions could be lost through fraud and defaults.