Three months after the political imbroglio around forming a populist government roiled Italian assets, bond investors are contemplating a fresh hurdle: its first budget, due next month. The big risk is that the euroskeptic Five Star Movement-League coalition breaks the 3 percent deficit limit set under European Union rules, putting the country on a collision course with the bloc, Bloomberg News reported. That’s got traders hunting a variety of strategies, from selling bond futures to buying Euribor options, to guard against the kind of market meltdown seen at the end of May.

Deep cost cutting at the troubled newspaper publisher Johnston Press helped it maintain profits despite a dip in digital revenues as Google and Facebook tightened their grip on the online advertising market, The Telegraph reported. The publisher of the i, the Scotsman and scores of local titles is in a race against time to agree debt restructuring with its lenders before a repayment deadline next summer that threatens to tip it into administration. First half turnover was down 10pc on last year to £93m, as among the main lines of business only the i registered growth.

The company behind the McMahon’s Builders Providers chain recorded an 83 per cent increase in profit last year as trading rebounded in tandem with the growth in the Republic’s construction sector. Recently filed accounts for Derevoya Holdings Limited show the Limerick-based business with 14 branches across Ireland posted a pre-tax profit of €7.88 million for 2017, with continued growth experienced so far this year. Additionally, a “tight control” on the company’s cost base resulted in an improvement in the group’s operating profit, which increased 62 per cent to €8.84 million.

Uncertainty in the run-up to Italy’s budget in October is leaving the country’s assets looking exposed. As the populist coalition government prepares its first finance bill, there is once again an uneasy tone to trade, keeping the FTSE MIB out of a broader rally on global markets, while its sovereign debt is also being sold off, sending yields higher, the Financial Times reported. The pattern comes as the ruling parties continue their budget negotiations. The League and Five Star parties are united in power but have opposing policy aims, adding to the uncertainty.

Credit Suisse Group AG plans to buy back about 5.9 billion francs ($6 billion) of debt issued after the financial crisis to the Qatar Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia’s Olayan family to cut funding costs, Bloomberg News reported. The bank will redeem the contingent convertible bonds -- which automatically become equity when reserves fall below pre-set levels -- on Oct. 23, the first opportunity to do so, according to a statement from the bank on Tuesday.

When a company goes under, or is teetering on the brink, news of its plight is usually greeted with genuine sympathy for its employees, along with nostalgic recollections of how the business used to be in its heyday. But not if that company is Wonga. Reports of the impending collapse of the notorious payday lender, which fleeced and frightened its vulnerable and desperate customers throughout the financial crisis, have been greeted with undisguised glee on social media, The Irish Times reported.

Breaking the direct link between eurozone countries and their banking systems is the major goal of the European banking union, the Financial Times reported. But the risks borne by governments and banks continue to be closely connected, as recent events in Italy have shown. Two key elements of the banking union are still missing: a European deposit insurance scheme and a system of regulation for banks’ sovereign exposures. Unfortunately, the political situation in Italy could slow down eurozone reform. But allowing that to happen would be a big mistake.

The German government is considering providing emergency financial assistance to Turkey as concerns grow in Berlin that a full-blown economic crisis could destabilize the region, German and European officials said. While the talks are at an early stage and may not result in any aid, the possibilities being discussed range from a coordinated European bailout similar to the kind deployed during the eurozone debt crisis to project-specific loans by state-controlled development banks and bilateral aid, The Wall Street Journal reported.

After nine years of unprecedented peacetime economic hardship, Greece exits its IMF bailout programme. So ends a series of three bailouts organised by the so-called troika of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, Neos Kosmos reported. A total of €336 billion was lent to Greece in the wake of the financial crisis, to stop it defaulting on its national debt, with approximately €300 billion used so far. What’s more, over 90 percent of the funds were not directed toward investment projects, but went on servicing Greece’s national debt.

A proposed deal for an Irish business family to buy discount retailer Poundworld out of administration in the United Kingdom has collapsed in acrimony, The Irish Times reported. Deloitte, administrators to the chain in the UK, said that the Dublin-based Henderson family had agreed a “deal in principle” earlier this month to buy a tranche of stores in an eleventh hour agreement before they were shuttered.