Italy’s troubled fashion house Roberto Cavalli said on Tuesday a court had approved a debt restructuring agreement needed for its sale to Dubai’s Vision Investment Company, a group owned by the founder of Damac Properties Group, Reuters reported. Italian private equity firm Clessidra took over 90% of the label from its founder in 2015, in a deal that valued the company at about 390 million euros ($433.10 million), sources said at the time. But the new owner was unable to turn around the Italian brand despite appointing a new CEO and a new designer.

The Russian central bank is set next year to slightly soften capital buffer requirements on banks that assess their own credit risk, deputy governor Vasily Pozdyshev told Reuters, in a bid to encourage more lenders to take up the practice, Reuters reported. The move comes as the Russian central bank presses for banks to conduct in-house risk assessments, saying it allows for better management of banks’ capital cushions and could cut the cost of borrowing.

The euro zone's rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, agreed on Monday to allow Greece to pay back earlier some of its debt to the International Monetary Fund, the ESM said in a statement, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The move, which concerns loans worth around 2.7 billion euros (2.3 billion pounds), allows Athens to reduce its debt-servicing costs, because IMF loans carry higher interest than Greece would now pay on the market.

For the past year, business leaders and policymakers in central Europe have been wondering how long they can defy gravity, the Financial Times reported. The region’s economies spent the last few years in the grip of a sustained boom, powered by a friendly mix of low interest rates, surging consumer spending and a recovery in the eurozone. But since last autumn Germany — the biggest trading partner for much of central Europe — has been sliding towards recession, and many fear a knock-on effect.

The Nordic business of Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm which collapsed five weeks ago, expects to have a buyer by Christmas after attracting several bids and interest from over 10 parties, a spokeswoman said on Monday. The Nordic business, also known as Thomas Cook Northern Europe, said in September it would continue to operate as usual as it is a separate legal entity and that it was looking for new owners, Reuters reported.

China’s Jingye Group has fuelled hopes of a rescue deal for British Steel with plans to send a delegation to the second-biggest UK steelmaker’s main plant in Scunthorpe, the Financial Times reported. Hebei-based Jingye, which also owns hotels and a medicines business alongside its main steelmaking operations, is due to visit the Lincolnshire steelworks next week.

It was meant to be a commemorative coin, a reminder in your pocket that the UK had left the EU on October 31. But with the departure set to be delayed once again next week, millions of 50p “Brexit coins” are just one government initiative having to be hastily reconsidered, the Financial Times reported. With scant acknowledgment this week, Boris Johnson broke a commitment to his party and country of quitting the bloc on October 31 “come what may, do or die”.

Standard & Poor’s raised Greece’s sovereign credit rating by one notch, signaling confidence in the country’s new government and its policies. Coming 16 months after it last upgraded Greece’s rating, S&P said in a statement Friday that it is raising the country’s long-term foreign currency debt to BB- from B+. The ratings agency’s outlook remains positive. Still, the new rating keeps Greece three levels below junk, showing that the country has to do more to regain its investment-grade rating, Bloomberg News reported.

Italy wants to shield Monte dei Paschi from bad loan losses as it prepares the bailed-out bank for a sale, but faces resistance from European Union competition authorities, two sources close to the matter said, Reuters reported. Italy’s Treasury has a year-end deadline to present an outline of its strategy for getting out of the world’s oldest bank, which was at the forefront of Italy’s banking crisis until a 2017 state bailout was cleared by Brussels.

The man who invented Germany’s strict limit on new public borrowing has called for a rethink, saying the country should raise billions of euros in debt to invest in new technology, fight climate change and repair its ageing infrastructure, the Financial Times reported.