The UK economy shrank more than initially estimated in the first quarter of this year, recording the largest fall since 1979 as coronavirus choked activity in March, with household savings soaring, the Financial Times reported. Output in the UK dropped 2.2 per cent in the first quarter compared to the previous three months, according to revised data from the Office for National Statistics. This is a sharper contraction than the first estimate of 2 per cent. The quarterly fall in UK gross domestic product is now the joint largest since the third quarter of 1979.

Petra Diamonds, owner of the South African mine famous for producing two of the diamonds in the British crown jewels, has put itself up for sale as it battles to service its debts, the Financial Times reported. The London-listed miner, which has been in talks with creditors after the coronavirus pandemic hammered the diamond market, said it was seeking offers for all or part of the company that owns the Cullinan mine.

Germany takes the helm of the EU’s rotating presidency on Wednesday with one overriding aim: to rescue the bloc from the worst economic crisis in its history, the Financial Times reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel met French president Emmanuel Macron today to discuss next steps for the €750bn recovery proposals unveiled by the two leaders in May, as well as the EU budget.

Germany’s opposition called on Monday for a parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of payments firm Wirecard after a global fraud that left a gaping hole in its books went undiscovered by auditors and regulators for years, Reuters reported. The request for an inquiry came after Germany said it would cancel its contract with the country’s privately-run accounting watchdog FREP as a result of a scandal that financial regulator BaFin has branded a “total disaster”.

At the airport of Tarbes in France, row upon row of empty jets in liveries from Asia to Africa sit nose to tail on the tarmac, waiting out the coronavirus crisis in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Reuters reported. Air travel has tumbled to a fraction of normal levels due to the pandemic, grounding about two thirds of the world’s fleet and stretching Europe’s largest aircraft storage company. “Today there’s no (travel) demand. That is why we have more than 200 aircraft on our sites,” said Patrick Lecer, chief executive of TARMAC Aerosave, headquartered at Tarbes.

However much Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will be able to arrange a trade deal with the European Union by the year-end, firms in Britain are already bracing themselves for the possibility he won’t, Bloomberg News reported. Renold Plc, a Manchester-based maker of vehicle chains and gearboxes, is among them. It’s planning to fast-track deliveries to customers in the coming months to ensure they aren’t caught up in any potential border disruption due to Brexit in January, according to Chief Executive Officer Robert Purcell.

Russia’s $1.6 trillion economy is going to be dealt another blow when a moratorium is lifted on companies filing for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The measure, which was a condition of government pandemic support, helped protect healthy businesses from creditors but left those that won’t survive limping along as zombies. It expires in October. “It’s like a life-support machine for companies -- if there isn’t treatment, they will just die when it’s switched off,” said Yuriy Khalimovsky, a director at Deloitte’s legal service in St. Petersburg.

UK shopping centre owner Intu has entered administration, becoming the latest casualty of a coronavirus pandemic that has inflicted severe pain on the country’s struggling retail sector, the Financial Times reported. The company, whose malls include the Trafford Centre in Manchester and Lakeside in Essex, had sought breathing space on its debts from lenders but said in a statement on Friday that “insufficient alignment and agreement has been achieved on such terms”. KPMG has been appointed to oversee the administration.

Europe’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is well under way, according to sentiment indicators, high-frequency measures and hard data — but activity remains far below normal levels, suggesting that the recovery from recession will be a struggle, the Financial Times reported. The continent’s workers and consumers began to return to work, shopping and dining out from last month onwards, generating an initial post-lockdown rebound.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG dodged insolvency. Now Europe’s biggest airline faces the arduous task of transforming itself into a leaner carrier to compete in an air-travel market hamstrung by the coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported. The approval of a 9 billion-euro ($10.1 billion) German bailout concludes weeks of sometimes rancorous negotiations with the government and follows frenzied speculation in recent days over whether billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele, Lufthansa’s largest shareholder, would scupper the deal. Instead, he backed it.