British luggage brand Antler has collapsed into administration, becoming the latest victim of the coronavirus crisis and its devastating impact on international travel, Reuters reported. Restructuring firm KPMG said on Tuesday it had been appointed administrator to the 106-year old brand, which operates 18 retail stores and one concession outlet. It also sells via its own website, through Amazon and wholesales to several large retail chains across the United Kingdom. It also has third party licence deals in Australia and Asia.

Tech start-ups across Europe are struggling to access coronavirus support schemes because of EU state aid rules, industry groups from several countries say, threatening to undermine Brussels’ attempts to stimulate local rivals to Silicon Valley, the Financial Times reported. More than a dozen tech trade groups, including industry associations in France, Germany, the UK and Ireland, have together written to EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager calling for “more flexibility” in member states’ ability to provide “vital” support to lossmaking but innovative small businesse

Thyssenkrupp AG is considering the sale of units that make steel and submarines as the conglomerate fights for survival in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The company said on Monday it will explore “consolidation options” for the two businesses in the latest plank in management’s strategy to downsize the firm and concentrate on higher-margin business areas after years of struggles. “We have taken some difficult decisions that were long overdue,” Chief Executive Officer Martina Merz said in a statement.

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.