The euro zone issuance market for subordinated, loss-absorbing bank bonds re-opened this week for the first time in almost three months after a severe sell-off in the asset class due to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. The 80 billion euro ($86 billion) market for these bonds - the riskiest debt banks can issue - had been shut for issuance since Feb. 20, according to Refinitiv IFR data, as borrowing costs shot up, while banks also waited to release their first quarter earnings.

As the European Union lurches toward one of the worst slumps since the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, EU regulators have adapted their playbook from more recent history to help salvage companies from the ravages of Covid-19, Bloomberg News reported. Just over a decade ago, Brussels competition watchdogs had to oversee massive state bailouts doled out to a banking system on the brink of collapse. With a credit crunch threatening to topple global economies, the EU stepped in to ensure loans started flowing but with strict conditions to prevent competition from being left in tatters

To the analysts at UBS Global Wealth Management, the $3.9 trillion municipal-bond market is heading into the biggest financial storm anyone has ever seen, Bloomberg News reported. The nation’s swift economic collapse is hitting virtually every corner of the market, which extends far beyond states and cities with the power to raise taxes. Nursing homes that have sold tax-exempt debt are being ravaged by the outbreak. College dormitory operators are facing vacancies, while small private schools that were already competing for students face uncertain prospects.

Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.’s ability to avoid collapse could come down to about a dozen potential investors who tuned into a video presentation on the airline’s coronavirus survival plan this week, Bloomberg News reported. Chief Executive Officer Shai Weiss pitched the firms in a simultaneous online link-up, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Satellite operator Intelsat SA said late on Wednesday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the latest casualty of severe business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The company listed assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Intelsat also said it had received $1 billion in debtor-in-possession financing.

Europe’s biggest banks expressed different views of how the economy will fare in the fallout from the coronavirus, making for widely varying expectations of how much of their loan books will go bad, Bloomberg News reported. Deutsche Bank AG and France’s Societe Generale SA gave the rosiest estimates of the eurozone economy among the continent’s biggest banks, while Italy’s UniCredit SpA was the most pessimistic.

Thyssenkrupp AG warned losses could surge in the third quarter due to the coronavirus crisis, further eating into cash from a multibillion-euro elevator sale that was meant to fund a turnaround, Bloomberg News reported. The engineering conglomerate said it could lose 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) this quarter after its net after-tax loss widened about 40% to 1.31 billion euros in the six months through March. That helped push net debt to 7.55 billion euros, a figure likely to rise as the pandemic hurts the global economy.

A financial scandal has swept through London and the United Arab Emirates, centered on allegations of fraud at the two core companies of the Abu Dhabi-based tycoon Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, Bloomberg News reported. Both NMC Health Plc and Finablr Plc have had their shares suspended in London, with NMC losing its place in the FTSE 100 index of leading U.K.-listed companies.

The UK agency tasked with unwinding Carillion is preparing to sue KPMG for £250m over alleged negligence in its audits of the outsourcing group that collapsed in 2018, the Financial Times reported. The significant claim will be the latest blow to the Big Four accounting firm, which is also under investigation by regulators for its work on Carillion. It is expected to be the first time that liquidators working for the British government have attempted to sue a large audit firm to recoup losses from a major insolvency.

Italian industrial production fell almost 30% as companies were crippled by a near total lockdown on the economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Production fell 28.4% in March from the previous month, national statistics bureau Istat said Monday. Production of machinery and equipment, one of Italy’s main exports, weighed the most on the overall figure with a 39.7% decline. Textiles plunged 51%. Italy, one of the original epicenters of the virus in Europe, began a regional lockdown in late February before expanding to the whole country in early March.