A sufficient number of creditors of indebted Premier Oil have approved a proposed merger with private equity backed Chrysaor to create the British North Sea's biggest oil and gas producer, Premier said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The reverse takeover, which will see Premier’s creditors paid $1.23 billion (947.9 million pounds) in cash, will fold one of the world’s oldest independent producers into a private equity-backed group in which Premier shareholders will receive an expected 5.45% stake. Premier had $1.9 billion in net debt.

With the pandemic having pushed any talk of austerity to the sidelines, the race is on in Europe to spend its economies out of recession and back to some semblance of normality, Reuters reported. While the total cash being thrown at the challenge amounts to trillions of euros, that masks deep national differences between the amount and type of aid on offer.

Apparel retailer Esprit announced Sunday the insolvency plans it developed for its six German subsidiaries have been approved by creditors and confirmed by the Dusseldorf court, FashionUnited reported. The process allows “a complete restart for the group” enabled by substantial debt forgiveness for the six German subsidiaries. The company said that after the final and official conclusion of the proceedings, expected by the end of the month, Esprit “will go back to normal operations”.

Lazard Ltd has hired restructuring banker Sam Whittaker from PJT Partners to oversee negotiations between companies and their creditors across Europe, the Middle East and Africa as a second wave of COVID-19 leaves many businesses fighting for survival, Reuters reported. Whittaker, who started his banking career at Lazard in 2005 and then moved to fellow investment bank PJT in 2015, will re-join Lazard as a London-based managing director in its EMEA restructuring franchise.

Like the coronavirus crisis itself, the response of the world’s governments has been on a scale never seen before, the Financial Times reported. The IMF estimates that fiscal spending and tax cuts worldwide add up to more than $11.7tn so far, on top of a monetary policy response in which trillions of dollars have been pumped into the global financial system by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. Old policy prescriptions have been torn up. Once the guardian of austerity, the IMF has urged countries to spend as much as possible.

Bounty, the parenting club which has distributed samples of baby products to generations of new mums, is on the brink of insolvency after seeing one of its main revenue streams cut off by the coronavirus pandemic, Sky News reported. Sky News has learnt that Bounty is preparing to confirm a pre-pack administration later this week that will result in as many as 300 redundancies. Sources said that Bounty's current owner and chief executive, Alan Charming Chan, was expected to buy its sampling and consumer marketing division from Alvarez & Marsal, the prospective administrator.

Activity in Covid-19-struck Europe is thought to have leapt in the third quarter, but finance ministers meeting early next week will take little comfort from coltish-looking economic figures, the Financial Times reported.. The reason is simple — the rolling series of new restrictions that have been announced in recent days have cast a new shadow over the region's prospects, making it all but impossible to know exactly where output will go next. With Europe's caseload soaring at a vertiginous rate, Germany and France imposed new lockdown measures on Wednesday.

Banco Sabadell’s third-quarter net profit fell 77% from a year ago due to higher provisions, and the Spanish lender on Friday announced an efficiency plan, entailing yet unspecified job cuts in Spain, to counter the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. Overall loan loss provisions in the July-September period rose to 302 million euros ($357 million) from 194 million euros a year ago. Still, Spain’s fifth-largest lender beat market expectations thanks to a recovery in its banking activity, both in new mortgage and consumer lending.

After 14 years of construction and six delayed openings, Berlin’s new airport is due to welcome its first passengers on Saturday. But the timing could not be worse, Reuters reported. The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the global aviation industry into its deepest ever crisis, and recovery is not expected for at least a couple of years. That has left the new airport, originally called Berlin Brandenburg Airport but now known by its code BER, looking for extra funds to help pay its debts. Built on the site of Schoenefeld airport in former East Berlin, BER has been beset by problems.

British Land and Land Securities are among the landlords that have challenged New Look’s company voluntary arrangement, casting renewed doubt over the survival of the fashion chain, the Financial Times reported. The CVA, a type of insolvency process that usually results in landlords agreeing hefty rent cuts, was approved by creditors in September but the statutory challenge period ran until the middle of October. Three people with knowledge of the process said that there had been four separate challenges.