After a decade of scandals and multiple bailouts, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is back in the spotlight, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. This time, the Italian government is shopping around the 1.5 billion-euro ($1.7 billion) lender ahead of a European Union deadline for Rome to exit the bank next year. Loaded with legal risks that dwarf its market value, any investor will be loathe to buy Monte Paschi with those liabilities — not least in the midst of a pandemic. The risk to Italian taxpayers is that Rome offloads its majority stake in the world’s oldest bank at any cost.

Wirecard’s fabricated Asian business was not its only deception. The rest of the once-lauded German payment provider’s business was chaotic, beset by byzantine reporting lines, hobbled by lamentable IT and racking up losses, according to a report by Wirecard’s administrator and accounts of former employees, the Financial Times reported. The picture that emerges of the Wirecard businesses that did exist is a stark contrast to the one painted by former chief executive Markus Braun, who hailed the group as a highly profitable pioneer in the payments industry.

Struggling British companies have been forced to borrow close to £58bn in emergency loans backed by the government during the coronavirus pandemic, according to figures released by the Treasury, the Financial Times reported. The data published on Tuesday — which show a rise of almost £5bn in the past month — comes ahead of an expected extension for the four schemes put in place to support bank lending to companies to help them survive the effects of the economic lockdown.

Premier Oil’s biggest lender, hedge fund Asia Research and Capital Management (ARCM), plans to auction $200 million of the energy producer’s debt ahead of a $530 million equity raise by the company, three sources told Reuters, Reuters reported. ARCM, which holds more than 15% of Premier’s debt instruments, would retain about $240 million of the company’s debt if the auction succeeds. The bid deadline is set for Friday, one of the sources said.

The district court of Amsterdam on September 18, 2020 under a claim of Sberbank of Russia against DTEK Energy B.V. ordered to pay around $45.1 million and to take interim measures in respect of certain assets of DTEK Energy B.V. in the Netherlands, The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency reported. DTEK Energy said that these actions have no impact on the company's day-to-day operations of coal mining and electricity generation, the company is in dialogue with creditors on terms of the long-term loan restructuring.

European banks have loaded up on more than €200bn of their own governments’ bonds since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, in a move that could reawaken fears about the sector’s growing stockpiles of risky sovereign debt, the Financial Times reported. According to research by S&P Global Ratings, banks had increased their holdings of home-country government bonds to nearly €1.6tn by the end of June, up 15 per cent from the end of February. The rating agency said the pace of purchases was seven times faster than in the same period in 2019.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today is good advice for procrastinators and those in a pickle. Rolls-Royce is undoubtedly in a pickle, the Financial Times reported. And it has arguably been putting off an inevitable equity raise for months. But the situation facing the aerospace engineering group, which confirmed on Monday that it was evaluating a cash call of up to £2.5bn, is nuanced and not as straightforward as its weakened share price implies. It was always really a question of when, not if, with Rolls’ equity issue.

Norway's government has extended loan guarantees for the country's airlines, including Norwegian Air, by two months until the end of 2020, the Industry Ministry said on Sunday, Reuters reported. Norwegian Air secured a state aid package of 3 billion Norwegian crowns ($330 million) earlier this year after a debt restructuring but said last month it needed to secure more funding to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has changed the terms of the state guarantee scheme, the industry ministry said in a statement, without disclosing specifics.

Philip Day’s retail empire could be broken up after the tycoon launched a review of high street chains including Peacocks and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill following a number of unsolicited offers, the Financial Times reported. Mr Day, who has made a fortune by buying and restructuring distressed retail businesses, has received interest from potential bidders for all or part of value fashion chain Peacocks and his collection of “heritage brands”, which includes Jaeger, Austin Reed and Jacques Vert.

Rolls-Royce is in talks with sovereign wealth funds, including Singapore’s GIC, as part of a plan to raise around £2.5bn from investors next month, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter, the Financial Times reported. The UK aero-engine group is working with bankers at Goldman Sachs on the planned equity raise as it looks to become the latest company to tap stock market investors to repair a balance sheet badly damaged by the pandemic. The group is aiming to launch the equity raise in the first weeks of October, two of these people said.