Financial engineering, like life, moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it. Few companies have had to move faster this year than Tui, whose AGM presentation in mid February mentioned coronavirus only once, the Financial Times reported. “At present, we do not see any significant impact from the virus on our outlook,” chief executive Fritz Joussen told shareholders.

The European Central Bank has launched a fresh burst of stimulus to help the eurozone economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic, promising to buy €500bn more bonds over a longer period and providing extra cheap funding for banks, the Financial Times reported. The ECB increased the size of its pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) from €1.35tn to €1.85tn and pushed back the end of its main crisis-fighting tool from next June until at least March 2022, while reinvesting any proceeds until at least the end of 2023.

An application by bankrupt businessman Sean Dunne to vary an order requiring him to pay €7,000 a month for the benefit of creditors in his Irish bankruptcy was heard in private at the High Court on Thursday, The Irish Times reported. The private hearing was sought by Edward Farrelly SC, for Mr Dunne’s Irish bankruptcy trustee, arising from matters referred to by Mr Dunne in a sworn affidavit. Mr Dunne, representing himself, opposed the matter being heard in camera.

Private debt funds that lent to UK high street companies including Debenhams and Casual Dining Group have endured losses after the pandemic sent tremors through the leisure and retail sectors, the Financial Times reported.

The Portuguese government’s draft restructuring plan for ailing flag carrier TAP projects it may need around 2 billion euros of additional state aid by 2024, while thousands of jobs will be terminated to turn the airline around, three sources said, Reuters reported. One of the sources familiar with the document told Reuters it envisaged that TAP, which had a loss of 701 million euros in the first nine months of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic slashed its passenger numbers by 70%, should break even in 2025. The plan still needs to be approved by the European Commission.

Insolvency and restructuring activity remained low across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), since the beginning of the pandemic, except Romania, which has recorded an increase in the number of insolvencies, and Czech Republic, which saw an increasing trend in restructuring, according to PwC ”Global Restructuring Trends” report, Business Review reported…According to the report, insolvencies are expected to increase in Q4 2020 and into 2021 globally, especially for those companies that operate in heavily COVID-19-affected industries that may take much longer to recover, such as leisure, trave

With eurozone governments’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic set to rack up €1.5tn of extra debt, several senior Italian officials including the prime minister’s economic adviser have suggested the European Central Bank should forgive governments the debt bought through quantitative easing, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Cancelling sovereign debt the ECB has gathered or extending its maturity perpetually, they say, would free up more resources for the government to support the recovery. The idea has caused consternation in France and Germany.

Italy’s two houses of parliament gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to approve a contested reform of the euro zone’s bailout fund, known as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), at an EU summit on Dec. 10-11, Reuters reported. Last week some 60 rebels from the co-ruling 5-Star Movement, which has always opposed the reform, threatened to vote against the government, leaving it potentially vulnerable to defeat.

Greek banks, among Europe’s weakest, are getting rid of their bad loans at a healthy clip. In spring, the pandemic interrupted plans among the country’s banks to shed loans still festering from the eurozone crisis a decade ago, The Wall Street Journal reported. But stimulus from central banks and governments globally has sent fresh cash into funds that buy non-performing loans, reinvigorating the efforts.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank provided the bulk of the funding for Wirecard’s acquisition of a pair of Indian companies referred to in the fraud allegations against the defunct Germany payments group, documents seen by the Financial Times reveal. In 2015 Wirecard turned to the German banks when it agreed to pay up to €340m to a Mauritius-based fund for two India-based sister companies, Hermes i Tickets and GI Technology, the Financial Times reported.