New company registrations dipped to a five-year low in the first half of the year, as the coronavirus pandemic chilled the business environment, The Irish Times reported. But figures from credit risk analyst CRIF Vision-net point to more positive figures in June as a potential indicator of recovery. A total of 9,853 company start-ups were registered in Ireland in first half of 2020, the lowest number since the first half of 2015, when 8,981 were registered.

Finablr, the payments group embroiled in an accounting scandal, said on Monday that founder BR Shetty would resign as director and co-chairman with immediate effect. The company, which grew out of a United Arab Emirates remittance house and is part of the Indian entrepreneur’s business empire, last month appointed law firm Skadden to help investigate potential wrongdoing and theft in relation to about £1bn of undisclosed debt discovered on its balance sheet earlier this year, the Financial Times reported.

The Dutch economy looks set for a less dramatic fall in 2020 than previously expected, economic policy adviser CPB said on Monday, Reuters reported. The euro zone’s fifth-largest economy is expected to shrink 5.1% this year because of the coronavirus crisis, the CPB said, before rebounding with growth of 3.2% in 2021. This year’s recession would still be the worst on record, but it would be less deep than the 6.4% contraction the CPB forecast in June. “This is still an unprecedented blow,” CPB Director Pieter Hasekamp said.

EU competition regulators on Monday cleared a 1-billion-euro ($1.2 billion)(915.40 million pounds) plan by Denmark and Sweden to recapitalise virus-hit SAS, saying the measure would prevent the Scandinavian airline’s insolvency, Reuters reported. The plan is part of a larger recapitalisation package which will result in private investors holding a significant stake in SAS following the conversion of outstanding privately-held debt instruments into equity.

CNN Money Switzerland (CNNMS) will cease operations and file for bankruptcy after the coronavirus pandemic hit revenues, the Swiss business media company said on Monday, Reuters reported. While audience figures for the company’s audiovisual programmes rose sharply over the past six months, revenues contracted as business partners hit by the crisis cancelled or postponed contracts, CNNMS said in a statement.

Debenhams has insisted its decision to appoint a potential liquidator was merely a matter of procedure as its administrators continue their search for investors to secure the future of one of Britain’s best-known retailers, the Financial Times reoprted. The department store entered administration in April but has continued to trade while taking a series of measures to reduce costs to cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Lazards was appointed to explore a sale in July.

The British government is trying to find a way to offer state-backed loans to debt-laden companies owned by private equity groups, in the hope of rescuing a swath of the British high street, the Financial Times reported. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department (Beis) wants to help private equity-backed groups that employ large numbers of people, such as PizzaExpress, Prezzo or Merlin, the owner of Legoland, without breaching EU state aid rules, according to four people involved in the process.

The EU labour market shrank by a record amount in the second quarter, as the number of people in employment fell by 5.5m, the Financial Times reported. The 2.6 per cent quarterly reduction reported by Eurostat on Friday underlined the dramatic impact coronavirus has had on the region’s job market. Many companies have shed large numbers of staff or placed a significant portion of workers on government-backed furlough schemes.

Austria has experienced plenty of scandalous bank failures in the past decade, not least at Hypo Alpe Adria, the house lender of the late Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider, Bloomberg News reported. Yet the fraud that brought down tiny Commerzialbank Mattersburg im Burgenland AG raises questions for financial regulators and auditors that have uncomfortable echoes of the Wirecard AG debacle in neighboring Germany.

Lenders to the world’s biggest airport baggage-handling group Swissport have offered a rescue package that would restructure its €2.1 billion of net debt and could transfer ownership to them from struggling Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, The Irish Times  reported. The owners of €1.4 billion of senior secured bonds issued by Swissport have promised to invest in the business to help it survive the pandemic, which has hit its operations hard with the grounding of flights.