The European Central Bank has said it will set out plans to end its €2tn economic stimulus programme next month, sending the euro near its highest levels in more than two years as investors bet Mario Draghi is preparing to end seven years of crisis-era firefighting, the Financial Times reported. Amid rising confidence in the underlying strength of the eurozone’s recovery, Mr Draghi said the bank was likely to take the “bulk of decisions” on how to wind down its €60bn-a-month bond-buying programme at its next meeting in October.

Staff at Bell Pottinger have been told that the scandal-hit PR firm is likely to go into administration early next week as attempts to find a buyer to salvage the company look to have failed, the Financial Times reported. According to two people with knowledge of the situation, the stark news was delivered to the company’s employees at its London headquarters on Thursday by chairman Mark Smith and a representative from accountants BDO.

German shipping group Rickmers, which filed for insolvency in June, said on Thursday its ship management unit had the all-clear to continue business after it was bought by Bremen-based Zeaborn Group and owner Bertram Rickmers, Reuters reported. The company said in a statement that a consortium consisting of Zeaborn and Bertram Rickmers bought the division, which has its main sites in Hamburg, Singapore and Cyprus after they won a bidding process.

A group of Alitalia employees is preparing to join up with a non-European carrier and two Italian financial partners to bid for the insolvent airline, Italian weekly Panorama reported on Wednesday. Rome is looking for a buyer for all of Alitalia, which is under special administration for the second time in a decade, Reuters reported. Around 10 bidders, including Ryanair, have expressed an interest in acquiring all of the carrier or part of its assets.

German aviation investor Hans Rudolf Woehrl expects to submit an offer for insolvent Air Berlin early next week, jointly with several partners, he told German television. “It will be a programme that goes into several hundred million (euros), to be paid in installments. But even the first installment that we’re willing to pay is very, very high,” he told TV station ARD on Wednesday. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection in August after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses, Reuters reported.

A European banking giant just snubbed one of the world’s strictest financial supervisors by moving to a more accommodating regulatory setting, Bloomberg News reported. Nordea Bank AB’s decision to relocate its headquarters from Sweden to Finland puts the Nordic region’s only global systemically important bank inside the euro zone. After months of railing against Swedish efforts to make banks pay more to protect taxpayers, Nordea estimates its decision to go to Helsinki will save it as much as $1.3 billion in regulatory costs.

If you think the European Central Bank has a tough task balancing strong growth, weak inflation and a worryingly strong currency at its policy meeting tomorrow, spare a thought for the Riksbank. Markets are increasingly convinced that Sweden’s central bank will need to abandon its extreme dovishness as the economy shows signs of overheating, but suspicions that the ECB will stick with its negative rates well into the future piles further pressure on the Riksbank to keep its own interest rates on hold, the Financial Times reported.

Lego suffered its worst financial performance in more than a decade, forcing the Danish toymaker to declare it would overhaul its entire organisation and cut 1,400 jobs. Coming on top of the unexpected ousting of its chief executive last month, the news suggests Lego is facing its biggest test since it came close to financial collapse in 2003-04, the Financial Times reported. Revenues fell 5 per cent in the first half of the year to DKr14.9bn ($2.4bn), their first decline since 2004.

German family-owned logistics company Zeitfracht said on Tuesday it had expressed its interested in bidding for insolvent airline Air Berlin, citing opportunities for air freight business, Reuters reported. “Ideally, we would like to keep Air Berlin intact in its entirety,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday, adding it expected to be given access to Air Berlin’s books swiftly so it could submit a formal offer by the Sept. 15 deadline.

Eurozone economic growth remained steady but slipped slightly below expectations in August, according to a survey of business managers in the single currency area. The IHS Markit Eurozone composite PMI, which provides an indication of business sentiment, slipped from 55.8 to 55.7 in August, with a strong expansion of manufacturing production offset by less robust growth in the services sector, the Financial Times reported. The service-sector index eased to 54.7 from 55.4, marking a seven month low, as the rate of expansion in new work also slowed to its lowest level since February.