Louis Dreyfus Company is making sweeping cost cuts, starting with travel, entertainment, hiring and salaries, as the 168-year-old agricultural commodities firm tries to revive dwindling profits, Reuters reported. Global trade tensions and the African Swine Fever epidemic in Asia have piled pressure on grain trading firms as they try to emerge from a period of falling margins. Family-owned LDC, known as Dreyfus, is the “D” of the ‘ABCD’ quartet of global traders that also includes Archer Daniels Midland Co, Bunge Ltd and Cargill Inc.

The owner of Manchester's Trafford Centre has hired advisers to work on a critical restructuring of its balance sheet as it prepares to tap investors for new capital. Sky News has learnt that Intu Properties has drafted in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to work alongside its existing City advisers, Sky News reported. The appointment, which is understood to have been made in the last few days, comes ahead of a crucial Christmas period for Intu and rival shopping centre-owners such as Hammerson.

Greek jeweler Folli Follie has reached a preliminary deal with some of its creditors over a rescue plan for the company, it said late on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Folli has struggled to pay suppliers and workers and keep its business going since a hedge fund report in May last year questioned its accounting. Its shares have since been suspended, and the company has been fined by Greece’s securities watchdog. The firm published delayed audited financial statements for 2017 in July that showed it had overstated annual revenue by more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).

European Union governments reached a deal on Wednesday on new rules to facilitate banks’ recovery of assets from borrowers who default, an EU statement said, Reuters reported. The new rules, which need to be backed by the European Parliament, would introduce a mechanism to favor out-of-court procedures on foreclosures, speeding up banks’ recovery of collateral used by borrowers to obtain loans when they fall behind on their repayment schedule.

There’s been an uptick in the number of manufacturing companies entering insolvency, according to new research from accountancy Moore, East Midlands Business Link reported. The firm found that in the last year, there has been a 7% rise to 1,466 in manufacturing companies entering insolvency – a five-year high. The research identified that this was driven partly by uncertainty surrounded Brexit coupled with a broader slowdown across the continent. “The latest figures show that the doom and gloom around the UK’s manufacturing sector continues,” said Robert Branch from Moore.

Banknote printer De La Rue warned on Tuesday of “significant doubt” that it can continue as a going concern and said it would scrap its dividend to tackle mounting debt, sending its shares to their lowest in two decades, Reuters reported. The news follows a series of setbacks, including two profit warnings, an investigation into suspected corruption in South Sudan and the loss of a 400 million pound ($513.20 million) contract for Britain’s new passports.

Euro zone business growth has almost ground to a halt this month as a downturn in the manufacturing industry appears to be increasingly affecting the bloc's dominant services industry, a survey showed on Friday. Worryingly for policymakers at the European Central Bank, who have so far failed to stoke demand and inflation, forward-looking indicators suggest the bloc's economy is on shaky ground, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Italy's ruling parties failed to reach an agreement on Friday over a planned reform of the euro zone's bailout fund, two lawmakers said, as Rome frets about the impact the changes could have on the country's massive public debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "There are strong critical points in the reform. We continue to work on it," Raphael Raduzzi, a lawmaker for the ruling 5-Star Movement told Reuters at the end of a meeting of top coalition figures including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Private sector activity in the eurozone weakened in November as evidence mounted that the deterioration in the bloc’s export-driven manufacturing sector is increasingly affecting its hitherto buoyant services industry, the Financial Times reported. The IHS purchasing managers’ index for services in the single-currency area fell from 52.2 in October to 51.5 this month, pushing the composite reading — which includes services and manufacturing — 0.3 points lower to 50.3. The reading is close to the 50 mark, which indicates no change in activity levels. The equivalent inde

Chinese private equity group Hony Capital plans to tighten its grip on PizzaExpress with an agreement to buy an additional £80m of its bonds at a steep discount, giving it more control over any restructuring of the UK restaurant chain’s debts, the Financial Times reported. The move, which was opposed by some debt holders over concerns they could be marginalised, makes a restructuring more likely, analysts said. PizzaExpress, which was bought by Hony in a £900m leveraged buyout in 2014, revealed a debt pile of £1.1bn in its annual report in April.