France has launched a €100bn plan to rescue its economy from the coronavirus crisis with big investments in green energy and transport as well as industrial innovation, the Financial Times reported.  Announcing the “France Relance” (France Relaunch) plan in Paris on Thursday, Prime Minister Jean Castex said its “historic ambition and size” made it almost four times as large as the national plan introduced after the 2008 financial crisis. At 4 per cent of gross domestic product, it was the “most massive” plan unveiled in Europe so far relative to the size of the economy, he

Melrose Industries has posted a £685m half-year loss as the FTSE 100 buyout specialist and owner of car and aircraft parts maker GKN was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The buyout group, which purchased GKN in a £8bn hostile takeover in 2018, said its revenues for the six months to July fell by a little more than a quarter to £4.1bn.

Scandinavian carrier SAS AB has secured enough backing from bondholders for a debt-to-equity plan that it says is needed to stave off bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. At a crunch meeting in Stockholm on Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of creditors voted in favor of the proposals to convert their holdings into equity and new notes, according to Lars Lonnquist, a portfolio manager at Spiltan Fonder AB and acting chairman of a committee of SAS noteholders.

Israeli-Russian businessman David Sapir has offered to buy joint control of financially strapped El Al Israel Airlines, promising to use his business ties to return Israel’s flag carrier to profitability, Reuters reported. Sapir, whose businesses include infrastructure, telecoms and tourism, has offered to pay $51 million for 190 million new shares in El Al, which is the same amount of shares held by controlling shareholder Knafaim Holdings (KNFM.TA), and a 20% premium to El Al’s closing share price on Tuesday in Tel Aviv.

Europe will create thousands of “zombie companies” and lose competitiveness against the US and other countries if it keeps extending state aid to shield the economy from the coronavirus pandemic, Deutsche Bank’s chief has warned, The Irish Times reported. Christian Sewing told a conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday that “Europe threatens to suffer again from its greatest weakness. We are relatively good at counteracting the symptoms of a crisis.

While the new board of IL&FS and the directors appointed by it on the subsidiaries of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) have immunity from prosecution in India for the actions of the group in the past, they may not have the same protection in cases filed against the group firms outside the country, The Indian Express reported.

The eurozone slid into deflation for the first time in four years, heaping pressure on the European Central Bank to increase its support for the bloc’s faltering economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. Headline consumer price inflation was minus 0.2 per cent in August, down from an increase of 0.4 per cent the previous month, according to data released by Eurostat on Tuesday, ahead of the ECB’s policy meeting next week.

Factories across Europe, Asia and North America continued to shake off the coronavirus gloom in August as the global economy emerged from a downturn triggered by the health crisis, thanks in part to massive fiscal and monetary stimulus programmes, Reuters reported. Surveys showing an expansion in manufacturing activity may reduce pressure on policymakers to take bolder steps to avert a deeper recession. J.P. Morgan’s measure of global manufacturing activity rose to a 21-month high of 51.8 in August from 50.6 in July, the second straight month above the neutral reading of 50.

Insolvencies in the UK are forecast to jump by 27% this year, slightly higher than the global average rise of 26%, reveals a new economic research report by top trade credit insurer Atradius, ResponseSource reported. The latest Atradius Insolvency Report analyses the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the knock-on effect on insolvencies. Every major economy, except for China, is expected to enter recession this year with global GDP forecast to contract by 4.5%, making this recession more acute in magnitude than the Great Recession of 2009.

Members of the FAI have tonight agreed to a series of rule changes necessary to trigger a State bailout of the Association and avoid insolvency, The42 reported. A series of resolutions easily obtained the two-thirds majority needed to pass.