Allied Irish Banks is on the brink of issuing its first subordinated bond since being nationalised after the financial crisis, reaching a key milestone in its recovery. The euro Tier 2 bond will be the bank's first attempt at a public subordinated offering since it imposed severe losses on subordinated debt investors during the height of the eurozone financial crisis. The bank was bailed out in 2009 and fully nationalised in 2010. "It really is an important trade for them," said Chris Agathangelou, head of EMEA FIG syndicate at Nomura. "If it goes well, it sets up their whole capital plan.

In a related story, the Irish Times reported that Ukraine’s economy exited 1 1/2 years of recession last quarter, reaching a milestone toward what officials predict will be a drawn-out recovery. Gross domestic product rose a preliminary 0.7 per cent in July-September from the previous quarter, the State Statistics Office said Monday, buoyed by a modest industrial revival and relative peace in the nation’s east. The annual decline eased to 7 per cent from 14.6 per cent in the second quarter and as high as 17.2 per cent in the first.

There were almost seven insolvencies - and two bankruptcies - a day in Northern Ireland between July and September this year, it can be revealed today. And almost a third of all individual insolvencies ended in bankruptcy in the third quarter of 2015. The new figures, obtained by the Belfast Telegraph, actually show a decrease in the number of people and businesses going to the wall from the worst days of the recession, but shine a light on the sluggish rate of Northern Ireland's economic recovery.

Russia has proposed a restructuring of the $3bn bond owed to it by Ukraine, an about-turn from Moscow’s earlier insistence of full repayment next month, the Financial Times reported. The move offers a glimmer of hope that Russia and Ukraine can avoid a legal clash over the debt — a threat raised after Russia refused to participate in the $18bn restructuring deal Kiev reached with other creditors a month ago. However, question marks hang over the Russian offer as President Vladimir Putin made clear that he expects the International Monetary Fund to guarantee the debt.

The Financial Stability Board set out a new bank capital regime designed to end the problem of too-big-to-fail banks this week. But market participants were unanimous in saying that national frameworks would be key in determining how much Total Loss Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) debt will need to be raised and where it will price. The much-anticipated term-sheet laid out the reforms that will see the world's biggest lenders raise the equivalent of 18% of their risk-weighted assets in so-called TLAC debt by 2022.

Coking coal producer JSW expects to reach an agreement with bondholders on a debt restructuring, the company's deputy head said on Friday, three days ahead of a deadline in the negotiations. State-controlled JSW is struggling to cope with record low coal prices and high mining costs and has had to cut costs. "Taking into account the talks up to now, both sides aim at an agreement and we assume that the agreement will be reached," Tomasz Gawlik told reporters at a news conference on the company's third-quarter results. He declined to give further details.

In recent years, other European countries have accused Ireland of acting like an unfair low-tax haven. The European Commission, for example, is investigating whether Ireland gave Apple a preferential tax deal that broke the region’s tough state-aid rules, the International New York Times reported. While lawmakers and the company have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, the country is already phasing out the most controversial loopholes. Ireland has since turned to a new inducement: a low tax rate on revenue generated from patents and other intellectual property held in Ireland.

Davy, Ireland’s largest securities firm, is poised to hand employees about €40 million as it repays loans linked to its 2006 management-led buyout, according to people with knowledge of the matter, the Irish Times reported. The repayment is 1.8 times what workers lent the company to help finance its leveraged buyout from Bank of Ireland, including interest, which accrued at 6 per cent a year, said the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. The business was valued at €350 million in the buyout.

Mario Draghi has signalled that the European Central Bank is ready to boost its stimulus programmes next month as inflation wanes and economic prospects worsen, the Irish Times reported. “Signs of a sustained turnaround in core inflation have somewhat weakened,” the ECB president told a hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. The odds that the ECB will cut its deposit rate in December climbed to 100 per cent from about 88 per cent before the speech, ECB-dated Eonia forwards showed.

Romania has an insolvency incidence over four times higher than the Central and Eastern European (CEE) average, according to a study by Coface, Romania-Insider.com reported. About 45 of 1,000 active companies in Romania entered insolvency in 2014, the highest rate in the region. Serbia came second, with 41 insolvencies for each 1,000 companies, followed by Hungary, with 29. At the other end, Poland only had 0.5 insolvencies for each 1,000 companies, while the regional average was 10.