The two biggest banks in the Nordic region saw their market values shrink on Tuesday after publishing first-quarter results that disappointed investors, Bloomberg News reported. Danske Bank A/S said it now expects net interest income to be lower this year than in 2018 as the higher cost of funding brought on by its money-laundering scandal erodes its top line. Its shares plunged more than 7 percent after the market opened in Copenhagen. At Nordea Bank Abp, net interest income missed market expectations amid growing pressure from its biggest investors to boost revenue.

The number of companies falling into financial distress in England and Wales rose in early 2019, adding to signs that businesses struggled in the run-up to the original March Brexit deadline, official data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. There were 4,187 company insolvencies in the first quarter, up from 3,938 in the fourth quarter, the Insolvency Service said, citing seasonally adjusted data excluding “bulk” closures of companies set up by individuals for their personal affairs.

A delegation from a leading Chinese shipbuilding company has arrived in Croatia for talks about a possible investment in the country’s largest shipbuilder Uljanik, which is struggling to avoid bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Officials from the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) met Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his economic team on Monday and will visit Uljanik’s docks in the northern Adriatic later this week. “After the visit to the docks we will give full and serious consideration to this matter,” CSIC’s Chief Executive Hu Wenming told reporters.

Sentiment waned this month in the eurozone to a five-year low, adding to recent surveys that have indicated weakening economic growth in the second quarter, the Financial Times reported. The industrial confidence indicator dropped to minus 4.1 in April, the lowest since 2014, data from the European Commission show. The reading follows disappointing manufacturing indicators, such as the IHS Markit purchasing manager index, which pointed to a prolonged contraction in the month.

As talks on a Brexit deal fumble on, the uncertainty it has brought is hurting U.K. property firms and the financial services sector, Bloomberg News reported. The number of companies classed as being in “critical distress,” often a precursor to insolvency, rose 17 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, data compiled by financial adviser Begbies Traynor Group Plc show. It comes even as government figures suggest the economy picked up a little momentum in the first quarter, with GDP unexpectedly expanding in February for a second straight month. "Many U.K.

Banco Santander reported a 10.4 per cent drop in first-quarter net earnings, as restructuring costs in UK and Poland and high inflation in Argentina trimmed the bank’s performance, the Financial Times reported. The eurozone’s largest bank by market capitalisation said total net profit dropped to €1.84bn for the three months to March, down from €2.05bn in 2018. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected net earnings of €1.83bn for the quarter. Without foreign currency headwinds, the bank said profit for the quarter would have dropped 7.7 per cent.

The market for UK shopping centres has all but frozen up as buyers struggle to assign values to properties affected by troubled retailers restructuring their leases, the Financial Times reported. Just £20m of shopping centres changed hands in the first quarter of this year, according to data from CoStar, against a 10-year quarterly average of £783m. That was the weakest quarter since at least 2003 and “probably this century”, said Mark Stansfield, head of UK analytics at CoStar.

The money spent by the UK tax authority on private debt collectors has quadrupled in the past five years, suggesting an increasingly “aggressive” approach to collecting unpaid tax, accountants have warned, the Financial Times reported. HM Revenue & Customs spent £26.3m on private debt collectors in 2018, up from just £6.2m in 2014. It is part of an increase in the amount handed to private sector debt agencies by HMRC, which has spent more than £140m on their services since 2011.

Brexit is likely to threaten the pound’s status as a global reserve currency according to a survey of central bank money managers who say Britain’s departure from the EU will alter their views on sterling, the Financial Times reported. The pound’s history as one of the most important global currencies has meant central banks have long held assets denominated in pounds that can be sold quickly to help curb swings in their own currency’s exchange rates.

Arif Naqvi, the founder of buyout fund Abraaj Group, was denied bail by a London judge Friday after prosecutors said he may flee to Pakistan rather than face U.S. fraud charges, Bloomberg News reported. Judge Emma Arbuthnot denied Naqvi’s request after prosecutors said the 58-year-old wrote down the phone number of the Pakistani president when he was arrested earlier this month. Naqvi appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court for the latest stage of his extradition battle following his arrest this month on American charges of defrauding investors.