Deutsche Bank AG, which is in the throes of a global restructuring involving thousands of job cuts, is zeroing in on an Asian market where an unprecedented bad-loan clean-up offers the potential for a credit bonanza, Bloomberg News reported. In India, where bankruptcy law changes have injected urgency into efforts to restructure $210 billion of stressed assets, Deutsche Bank sees an opportunity to generate outsized returns by refinancing and trading debt, according to Amit Khattar, Asia-Pacific co-head of global credit trading. Khattar is considering adding to his team.

Prosecutors in Cologne are preparing their first indictments in a tax-evasion probe involving some of the biggest names in finance that cost the German treasury billions of euros, according to people familiar with the matter. Investigators are looking at the role of dozens of banks, brokerages, accounting companies, and law firms in the deals, and the cases involve hundreds of individuals, said the people, who declined to be identified because they’re not authorized to discuss the probe, Bloomberg News reported.

The surge in the price of oil has pushed eurozone inflation above the European Central Bank’s target, but policymakers in Frankfurt are expected to ignore the rise as broader price pressures across the region remain weak, the Financial Times reported. Headline inflation rose to 2 per cent in the year to June from 1.9 per cent in May, according to a preliminary estimate published by the European Commission’s statistics bureau, Eurostat, on Friday.

UniCredit SpA is selling at least 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) of non-performing loans in different deals, while extending a partnership to manage troubled corporate debt as part of its cleanup strategy, according to people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. The Italian bank is reviewing final offers for 700 million euros of unsecured loans in a disposal project dubbed Narciso and plans to finalize the sale next month, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

European Union leaders agreed on Friday the ESM bailout fund should play a bigger role in a more integrated euro zone, but left the details of that to December and difficult issues like a euro zone budget or deposit insurance for an undefined future, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Deeper euro zone integration has been championed by French President Emmanuel Macron since his election last year, but has run into opposition from Germany and its allies, wary of sharing more responsibility with less fiscally prudent governments.

Greece exits its third international bailout in August, but without further debt relief it may not be able to sustain market access in the long run, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday. Greece and its European partners agreed last week on a set of debt measures to help the country emerge smoothly from the program, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The deal significantly improved medium-term debt sustainability but "longer prospects remain uncertain," the IMF said.

One of the UK’s leading insolvency practitioners, who generated more than £25 million in fees from the collapses of Woolworths, HMV and Comet, has resigned from Deloitte amid an investigation into his conduct, The Times reported. Neville Kahn is one of three Deloitte partners under investigation by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) over the administration of Comet, the electrical retailer which collapsed in 2012 at a cost to the taxpayer of £45 million.

Bain Capital Credit, part of global investment firm Bain Capital, has won a race to buy a soured debt portfolio from the Italian arm of French bank Credit Agricole, a person familiar with the matter said, the International New York Times reported. The source said the portfolio, with a gross book value of 450 million euros ($521 million), comprises so-called 'unlikely-to-pay' (UTP) loans backed by real estate assets. UTP loans are not yet in default but they are unlikely to be repaid in full.

The number of companies and insolvency-licensed individuals increased by 11.97 percent in the first five months of this year, compared with the same period in 2017, to 3.686, according to data published on the National Trade Register Office (ONRC), Business Review reported. Most companies and sole traders in insolvency are in Bucharest, respectively 737 (plus 2,50 percent year-on-year) and in Bihor counties – 237 ( up by 22,16 percent year-on-year), Iasi – 213 (up by 4, 41 percent) and Timis – 181 (up by 27,46 percent). In May alone, 721 firms and PFAs went into insolvency.

Leonidas Bobolas, the scion of a powerful Athens business family, is battling to keep control of Greece’s largest construction company in a test of its willingness to adopt international corporate governance standards as the country emerges from a disastrous financial crisis, the Financial Times reported.