A proliferation of words for snow reflects the exceptional environment in which Inuit people survive. It is the same for Italian bankers, who have numerous terms for lousy loans, the Financial Times reported. Of these “unlikely to pay” is the most intriguing, implying a default may be a lifestyle choice as valid as designer spectacle frames. The category, worth about €83bn in outstanding loans, has also piqued the interest of foreign investors, including Bain, Bayview and Algebris. If they buy the debt, there could be a return in it. Everyone could end up better off.

Greek utility Public Power Corp (PPC) is considering the securitisation of part of its backlog of unpaid bills, it said in a bourse filing on Thursday, as repayment looms next month on an existing bond, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Manolis Panagiotakis said in January that declining profit was making it harder to issue debt, but was confident PPC would repay a 350 million euro ($394 million) bond due in May. In a brief statement following a report in Ta Nea newspaper, the company said it was examining all available financing options in order to deal with overdue receivables.

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has challenged the wealthier economies of northern Europe to increase budget spending to revive eurozone growth and cut the risks of another financial crisis, an ambitious proposal likely to raise hackles in Berlin and The Hague, the Financial Times reported. “There are many countries in the eurozone that have the means to invest more,” Mr Le Maire told the Financial Times in an interview in Paris.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi struck a downbeat tone, warning that the “persistence of uncertainties” was continuing to weigh on the eurozone economy, the Financial Times reported. “The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook remain tilted to the downside, on account of the persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets,” Mr Draghi said on Wednesday, after the central bank had earlier kept its benchmark refinancing rate at zero.

BNP Paribas on Wednesday denied having sued Astaldi, adding that it was the Italian builder that had launched legal action against the French lender on March 13, Reuters reported. The bank said it and other lenders were sued by Astaldi over the payment of an international guarantee issued by BNP Paribas at the request of the Italian group in favour of National Bank of Canada. The legal move was “totally groundless”, BNP added. Earlier on Wednesday, Italian daily Il Messaggero reported that BNP had sued Astaldi over an alleged breach of a contract in Canada, complicating its rescue plan.

Mike Ashley should have been favourite to take over Debenhams. The pugnacious sportswear billionaire was already its biggest shareholder, while overlaps with other parts of his retail empire gave scope for cost savings, the Financial Times reported. But this week he could only fulminate from the sidelines as creditors of the UK department store group, which traces its history back 240 years, seized control.

Demand for loans among eurozone businesses was flat the beginning of 2019 despite record-low interest rates, increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to take further action to bolster the bloc’s economy, the Financial Times reported. Data from the ECB on Tuesday indicated the expansion in loan requests that began in mid-2015 had ended, with the percentage of banks reporting an increase in demand for loans to businesses in the previous quarter falling to 0 per cent.

Italy’s populist coalition government has formally conceded that economic growth will be sharply lower this year than it had previously forecast, underlining its struggle to reconcile plans for higher public spending with a stubbornly slow domestic economy, the Financial Times reported. Following a meeting of ministers on Tuesday, the Italian government approved an updated budget plan that forecasts gross domestic product will be 0.2 per cent in 2019, bringing its estimates closer in line with the expectations of the IMF and vast majority of private sector economists.

Debenhams Plc, the 241-year-old U.K. department-store chain that anchors many of the country’s troubled shopping streets, was taken over by lenders after rebuffing a last-minute offer from billionaire Mike Ashley. The retailer entered a form of U.K. insolvency proceedings, handing creditors control and prompting the tycoon to call for the reversal of a process he described as a “national scandal.” Stores employing about 26,000 people will continue to operate as normal, but shareholders’ stakes are now worthless, Bloomberg News reported.

An Italian government scheme to reimburse shareholders of failed lenders damages the credibility of European Union rules on bank rescues, a leading EU lawmaker said on Tuesday, urging Brussels to block the plan, Reuters reported. The government agreed a plan on Monday with investors’ associations to use taxpayers’ money to compensate the shareholders and bondholders of six small banks that went bust over the last four years.