Croatian food producer and retailer Agrokor, which is in the process of being taken over by its creditors, reported a big rise in first-half core earnings on Monday, as cost cuts helped to offset lower revenues, Reuters reported. The largest private company in the Balkans with 52,000 staff said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) jumped 70.5 percent year-on-year to 729.7 million Croatian kuna ($112 million). That was despite a 13.3 percent drop in non-consolidated revenues to 11 billion kuna.

Air France KLM shares slumped on Monday after the airline’s biggest pilots union said over the weekend that there were risks of further strikes if pay talks with management did not resume, The Irish Times reported. Air France KLM shares were down 5.8 per cent in early trading, making them the worst performers on Paris’ SBF-120 equity index. The stock has fallen by around 40 per cent so far in 2018.

In a related story, The Irish Times reported that Turkey’s economic crisis poses a threat to European banks with business in the country. Spain’s BBVA, Italy’s UniCredit, France’s BNP Paribas, Dutch bank ING and Britain’s HSBC are the most exposed to Turkey and vulnerable to its free-falling currency. Analysts see as manageable even a worst case scenario which they deem unlikely at present – under which these banks would be forced to write off completely their local operations or exit the country.

Analysts believe shareholders will back troubled Irish-Swiss baker Aryzta’s bid to raise €800 million despite seeing the group’s value fall by €420 million in two weeks, The Irish Times reported. The maker of Cuisine de France bread said on Monday it intended to raise €800 million to reduce debt, which stood at €2 billion earlier this year, and give it the finance needed to implement a business plan. Aryzta said it would raise the cash by issuing new shares, giving the right to current investors to buy the stock in proportion to their existing holdings.

There’ll likely be no cake to celebrate the 10th birthday this month of Irish-Swiss baker Aryzta. It is probably looking to raise some dough. In the week following July 31st, the end of its financial year, about €200 million was wiped off its value, The Irish Times reported. Its shares, mainly traded in Zurich, plummeted by 23 per cent to 11.12 francs (€9.63). By the close of business on Thursday, it was worth less than €840 million against €1.1 billion nine days earlier. That’s roughly a quarter of what it was worth just five months ago.

The ups and downs of Italian government bonds are making the country’s banks queasy, Bloomberg News reported. UniCredit SpA and its smaller competitors are seeing their financial resilience being eroded after government bond values declined. The country’s banks hold by far the most state debt among lenders in Europe and with yields moving in reaction to politicians’ declarations, it’s not hard to see more risk ahead.

Sports Direct, the British sportswear retailer controlled by tycoon Mike Ashley, has snapped up House of Fraser from the department store group’s administrators for 90 million pounds ($115 million), Reuters reported. Billionaire Ashley, who also owns English Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, said on Friday his ambition was to transform House of Fraser “into the Harrods of the High Street” - a reference to the Qatari-owned luxury department store in London that was once owned by House of Fraser. Sports Direct bought House of Fraser’s 58 UK stores, its brand and all its stock.

Standard Chartered Plc and Commerzbank AG are among companies targeted by investors suing Steinhoff International Holdings NV to recover as much as 12 billion euros ($13.8 billion) they claim they lost because of accounting irregularities at the retail giant, Bloomberg News reported. The suit was filed in Johannesburg and seeks class-action status to cover shareholders who bought Steinhoff stock from June 26, 2013 to December 5, 2017, South African lawfirm LHL Attorneys said in an emailed statement.

Greece’s exit from its bailout programme later this month is widely viewed as a big step forward in declaring an end to the crisis in the eurozone’s most troubled economy. But for the country’s banks, the end of the programme means it is about to become a little more difficult for them to secure cheap credit, the Financial Times reported. The reason? A quirk in the European Central Bank’s collateral policy that means from later this month Greek government bonds — along with other bonds guaranteed by Athens — will no longer be eligible for use in the bank’s auctions of cheap cash.

Ireland’s Henderson family said on Thursday it had agreed to buy around 50 Poundworld stores, having struck a deal with the administrator of the collapsed British discount retailer, Reuters reported. The 335-store Poundworld went into administration in June after its majority owner, the private equity group TPG Capital, failed to find a buyer for the struggling business which had a total workforce of about 5,100. Administrator Deloitte said last month that all Poundworld stores would close by the middle of August.