London Stock Exchange Group Plc is tapping the U.S. high-grade bond market for $4.5 billion to help refinance debt it took on related to its acquisition of Refinitiv Holdings Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. The company is selling bonds in five parts. The longest portion of the offering, a 20-year security, may yield about 100 basis points over Treasuries. The exchange will use the funds to refinance debt incurred in connection with its $27 billion purchase of Refinitiv that was completed earlier this year.

Cineworld will ask shareholders to approve an increase in its debt ceiling next month after the pandemic-stricken cinema group plunged to a $3 billion loss last year, Reuters reported. The Regal Cinemas owner, forced by coronavirus lockdowns to shut most of its almost 800 theatres in October and temporarily lay off about 45,000 staff, sunk to its first pretax loss as a listed company last year, after a $212.3 million profit in 2019. Its shares tumbled 9% to 94 pence in early Thursday trading, the worst performance on the UK mid-cap index. The group, which is set to reopen its U.S.

Ulster Bank has been fined a record €37.8 million by the Central Bank for its role in the State’s tracker mortgage scandal, which saw the lender devise “deliberate” strategies to shift borrowers off cheap mortgages during the financial crisis and only rectify matters for those that complained, the Irish Times reported. Borrowers lost 43 properties as a result of overcharging as they were denied their entitlement to a low-cost mortgage linked to the European Central Bank’s main rate, the Central Bank said in a statement on Thursday. Family homes accounted for 29 of these cases.

When European Union leaders wrapped up 20 hours of talks to put the seal on a giant economic-aid package around dawn on Dec. 11, they didn’t head off to bed. They had one more topic that couldn’t wait: the damage done to corporate balance sheets, Bloomberg News reported. Starting at 8 a.m., the leaders summoned the EU’s top economic policymakers to brief them on the state of the euro-area economy and how to avert the next catastrophe they could already see coming down the track.

The City of London may be better off staying out of the EU’s financial services market as it would have to sacrifice autonomy over setting rules to win full access, a report by Britain’s upper house of parliament said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The European Union has yet to grant Britain direct financial market access after it left the bloc on Dec. 31 and large amounts of trading in stocks and derivatives denominated in euros has shifted to Amsterdam from London.

British tourists should go ahead and book foreign holidays despite government warnings not to, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said on Wednesday, as the low-cost carrier announced plans to run 80% of its peak summer capacity, Reuters reported. Vaccine rollouts will tame COVID-19 and reopen travel in time for beach holidays, O’Leary predicted during a news conference in which he also dismissed recent advice from UK ministers that foreign travel is likely to remain off-limits.

Japanese insurer Tokio Marine Holdings Inc said on Tuesday it currently expects no material impact on its results for the fiscal year starting next month as a result of its exposure to the fallout of Greensill Capital’s collapse, Reuters reported. Tokio Marine made the forecast in a statement the day after its shares fell 5.6% following a Bloomberg report that the Japanese insurer faced a larger-than-expected exposure to the insolvent British finance firm.

Britain’s jobless rate unexpectedly fell in the three months to January, a change that partly reflected people giving up their job hunt as lockdown measures tightened at the start of the year, official figures showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The main jobless rate dropped to 5.0% in the three months to January from 5.1% in the final quarter of 2020, in contrast to forecasts in a Reuters poll for a small rise to 5.2%. None of the economists polled had expected a fall.

Germany has extended its lockdown measures by another month and imposed several new restrictions, including largely shutting down public life over Easter, in an effort to drive down the rate of coronavirus infections, the Associated Press reported. Speaking early Tuesday after a lengthy video call with the country’s 16 state governors, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that restrictions previously set to run through March 28 will now remain in place until April 18.

The Central Bank has raised further concerns about the Government’s new shared equity loan scheme for struggling home-buyers, suggesting it is unlikely to elicit more supply, the Irish Times reported. The regulator’s director of economics and statistics, Mark Cassidy, said “the main effect” of the proposed scheme was likely to be on demand as there seems to be “some sluggishness” around how supply reacts to changes in the market. The implication being that the initiative could trigger further price inflation.