Skilled workers are in short supply for the eurozone’s smaller businesses, which spells good news for wages and domestic demand as the single-currency region enjoys record low unemployment, the Financial Times reported. One in four small and medium-sized businesses in the eurozone said that the biggest challenge they face is a lack of skilled labour. This is the highest proportion across all the issues they face and is up from 15 per cent three years ago, a survey by the European Central Bank found on Wednesday.

British property lending business BondMason told investors it is pulling out of its core peer-to-peer business ahead of an expected downturn in performance, days after another property specialist collapsed in the sector’s largest failure to date, the Financial Times reported. In an email to customers on Wednesday the company said it would stop offering new investments and wind down its service after collecting on its existing loans.

European shares dipped on Tuesday, with bank stocks capturing investors’ attention as concerns about a possible fine on Italy due to the indebted country’s yawning budget deficit exacted a heavy toll on risk sentiment, Reuters reported. The pan-region STOXX 600 fell 0.2%, with banks shedding 0.4% and chemicals stocks declining 1%. London-listed shares edged down as they traded for the first time this week, while Germany’s DAX ended 0.4% lower, matching the decline in Paris-traded equities.

Matteo Salvini has called for a “fiscal shock” of tax cuts in Italy as he exerts his political influence after a resounding victory in the European elections, but Brussels is preparing to hit back over Rome’s budget plans, the Financial Times reported. Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the anti-immigration League party said that Italy “must lower taxes”. “We need a Trump cure, an Orban cure, a positive fiscal shock to restart the country,” Mr Salvini said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

UK shopping centres owned by private equity groups including Lone Star and Oaktree have breached the terms of their loans, after retail failures triggered steep falls in property values, the Financial Times reported. Market players say the breaches will probably trigger a series of asset sales that will crystallise price falls in secondary retail properties.

An ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected an influential businessman’s call to default on the nation’s external debt, saying the proposal is the view of a “detached oligarch,” Bloomberg News reported. "Default is not in the interest of the state. Any responsible government must avoid it," former Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk, who advised Zelenskiy’s campaign and is slated to join the National Defense and Security Council in the new administration, told Bloomberg.

The past months have been brutal for the U.K.’s retail and consumer industries, and one bank that’s felt its fair share of the pain is HSBC Holdings Plc, which has found itself on the wrong side of several of the highest-profile failures, Bloomberg News reported. Last week, TV celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s casual-dining chain was placed into protection from creditors. That left Europe’s largest bank sitting on about 30 million pounds ($38 million) of potential losses, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A High Court judge has reserved judgment in a personal insolvency application by musician Frank McNamara and his barrister wife Theresa Lowe, the Irish Examiner reported. Mr Justice Denis McDonald said he won't give his decision before July as he has "to make sense" of the personal insolvency legislation which had been "drafted in an unhelpful way". It followed the second day of legal submissions in the case in which the couple seek court approval for an arrangement to assist them in dealing with debts of €3.7m.

In a related story, the Financial Times reported that manufacturing in the eurozone contracted in May, with an influential gauge indicating that activity remains weak as producers grapple with the intensifying US-China trade war and a slowing global economy. The single currency area is struggling to recover from the slowdown that began almost a year ago, according to the closely watched eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, which remained below the crucial 50 level in May.

Business confidence in Germany weakened to its lowest level in more than four years this month, casting fresh doubt over the health of the eurozone’s largest economy amid conflicting economic indicators, the Financial Times reported. The Ifo Institute’s business climate indicator in May fell to 97.9, below analyst expectations and down from 99.2 the previous month. The reading is the lowest since November 2014, according to FactSet data. Much of the decline was down to a fall in assessment of current conditions, which fell to 100.0 from 103.4 the previous month.