The State is to receive a €280 million payout from the IBRC liquidators in the next fortnight, as they make their first payout to the unsecured creditors of the former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, the Irish Times reported. The joint special liquidators of IBRC, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG announced on Tuesday that most unsecured creditors are to receive 25 per cent of what they are owed in an interim dividend.

Online review platform Yelp has taken a €65.4 million writedown on its Irish assets following the company’s recent decision to shut most of its international operations, the Irish Times reported. The company, whose main Irish unit recorded turnover of €32.6 million last year, incurred the impairment charge after it decided to wind down its sales and marketing activities outside of North America. Yelp came in for criticism for the manner in which it announced plans to close the operations, most of which are based in Ireland.

Spain has won praise from the International Monetary Fund for its “impressive” economic recovery, in a report that offered strong backing for the political measures taken by prime minister Mariano Rajoy at the height of the recent crisis. “The Spanish economy has continued its impressive recovery and strong job creation. Earlier reforms and confidence-enhancing measures have paid off, and combined with external tailwinds and fiscal loosening fuelled the strong economic rebound of the past two years,” the IMF said in its annual country assessment on Tuesday.

A financial fund is seeking judgment of €18 million against two businessmen over loans from the former Anglo Irish Bank provided for purposes including a housing development in Dublin, the Irish Times reported. Promontoria (Arrow) Ltd, which took over the loans, is seeking judgment against Martin Walshe, Cooldrinagh Lane, Leixlip, and Gerry McIntyre, Ladycastle, Straffan, both Co Kildare. Promontoria is also seeking judgment against Mr McIntyre for another €2 million in relation to another loan to him from Anglo to renew an existing facility with that bank.

Greece’s crisis is approaching a potential breaking point after a year of relative calm, as a government with declining political stamina confronts creditors’ unyielding demands, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ruling left-wing Syriza party, grappling with slumping popularity, is considering the option of calling snap elections in 2017, as it loses hope of winning concessions on debt relief or austerity from the eurozone and International Monetary Fund.

The Spanish government may to have to take over several bankrupt toll roads, the minister for public works said on Monday, adding that the state's chances of reaching a rescue deal involving the motorways' bank lenders was slim. The government has been trying for the past three years to negotiate some arrangement with creditors to help prop up nine struggling toll roads while also avoiding saddling the state deficit with several billions euros of debt. The deal would have involved steep losses for lenders - one plan envisage a 50 percent writedown on the debt - alongside an aid package.

Credit Agricole is poised to become the first bank to issue a new form of senior debt, thwarting expectations that BNP Paribas would open the new market and providing a much-needed template for what is expected to become a new European standard, Reuters reported. The issuer announced the inaugural non-preferred senior bond offering on Thursday, bringing one of the most eagerly awaited deals in the European financial bond market in 2016. The new security, which will sit between traditional senior and Tier 2 debt, has been almost a year in the making.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will step up efforts to win investors for a debt-for-equity swap over coming days, pressing ahead with a 5 billion euro ($5.3 billion) capital raise to avoid a state rescue that would impose losses on bondholders and shareholders, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s board met on Sunday and agreed to stick with the overhaul’s existing timeframe after it had requested an extension to the year-end deadline from the European Central Bank, the lender said in a statement.

There is tremendous uncertainty across the world. Electorates in the EU are increasingly tempted by radical populists from the left and right, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to scrap or renegotiate the US’s largest trade deals, which have been in the preparation for years. Institutions that are the product of the postwar political centre ground are now discredited. The world is in the grip of an epochal crisis of political economy.

An increasing number of firms are jeopardising their long-term survival by paying only the interest on their debt, not the capital itself. According to insolvency and restructuring trade body R3, the number of firms in this position has risen to 139,000 – 8 per cent of all UK businesses. Last year it was just 69,000 (4 per cent). Paying off only the interest on debt is often a sign of a ‘zombie business’ – a business surviving only because of low interest rates.