Poland's second-biggest power firm Tauron said on Thursday it has submitted an offer to buy assets owned by the troubled state-run Brzeszcze mine, Reuters reported. The already highly-indebted Tauron said it submitted the offer through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which it will ultimately hold a 40-percent stake. The rest of the SPV will be controlled by two other state-run entities. SRK, a state-owned coal mines restructuring company and the current Brzeszcze owner, has announced a public tender to sell the mine, meeting one of the conditions set by Tauron for it to submit an offer.

The State’s bank guarantee from September 2008 was “too generous” and “magnified the fiscal impact of the banking crisis”, said the European Commission’s director general for economic and financial affairs, the Irish Times reported. “At the same time, it is clear that the decision was taken in a very difficult situation characterised by great risks and uncertainty,” Marco Buti told the banking inquiry.

The holders of Ukrainian Eurobonds maturing in September and October say they considering the restructuring deal between Ukraine and the group of creditors unfair. They are concerned about the extension of the repayment deadline, RT.com reported. "Our clients consider this approach unfair, because it would defer the average maturity by more than eight years for the existing bonds due 2015 and only half a year for the existing bonds due 2023," Reuters quotes US law firm Shearman & Sterling that represents a group holding bonds issued under UK law.

ABB is to shake up its structure with the aim of saving $1bn a year after activist investor Cevian Capital built up a stake in the power grids and robotics giant, The Telegraph reported. Ahead of an investor day on Tuesday, the world’s largest manufacturer of power grids said it would streamline its organisation, reducing the number of divisions from five to four. The move is expected to produce $1bn of “white collar productivity” savings - job losses among its 100,000 office staff - a year by the end of 2017 and release $2bn in cash from working capital.

Russian coal and steel producer Mechel has signed a debt restructuring deal with the country's second-largest state bank, VTB, leaving it one step away from reaching an agreement with all three of its main lenders, Reuters reported. The indebted miner has spent a year in talks over a $6.8-billion debt restructuring with its three main lenders: VTB, Gazprombank and Sberbank. VTB has agreed to restructure Mechel debt worth 70 billion roubles ($1 billion), the bank and the miner said on Wednesday.

A review of the State’s six pillar banks which found 10 borrowers owed a combined €17.7 billion in September 2008 came as a “very significant” surprise, the Oireachtas banking inquiry has heard, the Irish Times reported. Denis O’Connor, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, told the committee the firm was hired by the financial regulator at that time to examine potential problems and liabilities in the banks. The review found that, in the worst-case scenario, the six institutions could lose €10 billion. The cost subsequently transpired to be €64 billion.

Lufthansa failed in a legal bid to halt a pilot strike planned for today which has resulted in about 1,000 flights being cancelled, as the airline’s dispute with crews escalated, the Irish Times reported. Pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) staged a strike on long-haul routes yesterday and has called another walkout for today on short-haul flights – and it warned there could be more pain to come.

Oil company investment in the North Sea is expected to slump by up to £4bn per year through to the end of 2018 as operators slash costs to compensate for lower prices, the industry trade body has warned. In its latest economic report on the North Sea, Oil and Gas UK said that 15pc of the offshore industry’s workforce - equal to 65,000 jobs - has been lost since the beginning of last year as oil companies cut back amid a 50pc slump in prices to around $50 per barrel, the Financial Times reported.

Poland's treasury ministry wants to transfer part of its stakes in gas group PGNiG, insurer PZU and utility PGE into state-run investment fund TF Silesia, an official agenda for a cabinet meeting on Monday showed. A treasury spokesman declined to comment on the reason for such a move. Local media, however, said the government wants to use TF Silesia, among other state entities, to rescue state-controlled Kompania Weglowa, the European Union's largest coal miner, which is on the brink of bankruptcy due to high costs and falling coal prices.

Greece’s former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pledged to continue fighting for better bailout terms from the country’s creditors, as opinion polls show that his left-wing Syriza party is tied with conservative rival New Democracy two weeks before snap elections, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr.