The French government is considering buying out minority shareholders of Electricite de France SA, the first step in a corporate restructuring to address the challenge of replacing the country’s nuclear-power backbone, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. The government has asked EDF, of which it owns 84 percent, to propose changes in its structure. The utility’s cash flows are vulnerable to volatile power prices and intensifying competition, and it’s already struggling to fund billions of euros of investments to maintain or replace its aging reactors.

Italy is willing to support the creation of a “New Alitalia” in the latest attempt to help revive the struggling carrier, the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Wednesday. Alitalia was put under special administration in 2017 after workers rejected its latest rescue plan, leaving the government once again seeking a buyer to save the carrier, Reuters reported. It will be the airline’s third rescue in a decade.

UK shares lagged their euro-zone peers on Tuesday as growing risks of a disorderly Brexit rattled investors, while poor results from tour operator TUI and a profit warning from online trading platform Plus500 sapped appetite for stocks. The mood soured on the main indices in choppy afternoon trade as Prime Minister Theresa May urged lawmakers to back her Brexit deal and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned again of the economic damage if Britain leaves the EU without a deal, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The European Central Bank should pause plans to ditch its crisis-era stimulus, the governor of the Dutch central bank has said, in a sign that concerns over disappointing economic growth have spread to the eurozone’s most hawkish circles, the Financial Times reported. Klaas Knot, a contender to replace Mario Draghi as ECB president, told the Financial Times that the central bank needed to gauge how badly the economy was faring before pressing ahead with plans to normalise monetary policy.

Thyssenkrupp shares fell to a three-year low on Tuesday after the company warned that economic and political uncertainties were growing as it unveiled disappointing results, the Financial Times reported. The German industrial group, which produces a range of products from steel to elevators, reported a sharp 37 per cent drop in operating earnings in the last three months of 2018 — the first quarter of the company’s financial year.

Banco Santander SA reminded investors that juicy bonds can come with nasty surprises. The Spanish lender rattled the bank Additional Tier 1 market by saying it will skip an option to call 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) of perpetual contingent-convertible notes next month, sending the bonds tumbling, Bloomberg News reoprted. The announcement came late Tuesday, right at the deadline for a decision, after the bank kept investors in the dark for weeks regarding the call option and in the aftermath of another deal, a sale of dollar AT1 notes on Wednesday.

Debenhams Plc secured a lifeline from some of its lenders, giving the troubled U.K. department-store chain 40 million pounds ($51 million) in liquidity as it attempts a broader refinancing, Bloomberg News reported. The company, which operates middle-market stores that anchor many of Britain’s malls, also struck an agreement with export and logistics company Li & Fung Ltd. on a sourcing partnership for Debenhams own-brand products. The deal will help the retailer anticipate trends more quickly and boost quality, Chief Executive Officer Sergio Bucher said in a statement Tuesday.

The Treasury has gone “Awol” in recent weeks, ignoring banks’ efforts to co-ordinate an emergency funding programme for small businesses in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to senior industry figures. Three senior bankers said the Treasury had ignored requests from banks to provide support for small and medium-sized enterprises, despite fears that a disorderly exit would disrupt SMEs’ cash flow, triggering a sharp increase in loan defaults across the sector, the Financial Times reported.

A personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) which involves writing down a €343,785 mortgage debt by more than half has been approved by the High Court for a woman who ran into mortgage arrears due to her husband’s gambling problem, The Irish Times reported. Permanent TSB objected to the arrangement, insisting the proposed write down of some €343,785 to €160,000, the current agreed market value of the woman’s home, was “draconian”.

Matteo Salvini has raised the possibility of wresting control of Italy’s sizeable gold reserves away from the country’s central bank in the latest in a series of threats to the independence of the Bank of Italy by Rome’s populist coalition, the Financial Times reported. “The gold is the property of the Italian people, not of anyone else,” Mr Salvini, deputy prime minister and leader of the League party, said in comments to reporters on Monday.