Switzerland is seeing a more than fivefold surge in mergers and acquisitions that’s outpaced most of its European peers, giving bankers hopes for a lucrative payout this year, Bloomberg News reported. The volume of takeovers targeting Swiss companies has jumped 465% to $16.7 billion so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Private equity firms are particularly active, with Advent announcing late Sunday it has agreed to acquire Zurich-listed chipmaker U-blox Holding AG in a deal valued at 1.05 billion Swiss francs ($1.3 billion).

After months of financial turmoil, AC Ajaccio have filed for bankruptcy, losing their professional status for the first time in 27 years, YahooSports.com reported. According to Corse-Matin, the Corsican club submitted their declaration of insolvency on Monday at the Ajaccio commercial court. The decision comes after the board failed to attract investors or cover an estimated €13m deficit. The move will result in the loss of around 180 jobs and the closure of the club’s training centre, which was named the best in Ligue 2 as recently as May. Ajaccio’s immediate future remains unclear.

Sanjeev Gupta is lining up financing from BlackRock for a contentious scheme to buy a crucial remaining part of his Liberty Steel business in the UK out of insolvency, a move set to put the metals magnate on a collision course with creditors including UBS, the Financial Times reported.

The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands dropped significantly in July. According to Statistics Netherlands, a total of 299 companies were declared bankrupt in July, which is 109 fewer than during the same period last year, a drop of 27 percent. It was also 4 percent fewer than in June, NLTimes.nl reported. The bankruptcy rate, the number of bankruptcies per 100,000 companies, was 8.1 in July. A year earlier, 11.3 out of every 100,000 companies were declared bankrupt.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG is working on a debut significant risk transfer tied to billions of dollars of U.S. commercial real estate loans, Bloomberg News reported. The Garching-based bank is sounding out investors about the potential transaction. In June, PBB said it would discontinue its US business completely and planned to wind down, securitize or sell a portfolio of about €4.1 billion of US commercial real estate loans. Earlier this month it booked €314 million in charges linked to its decision to exit the U.S.

Russia has quietly developed a crypto-fueled network of payments systems that's helped it evade Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine, BusinessInsider.com reported. That assessment comes from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which said that it believes Russia had created a "shadow crypto economy" in the years following its invasion of Ukraine in order to sidestep financial punishment by the US and its allies. The report highlighted one crypto token in particular tied to Russian businesses trying to trade under the radar.

Switzerland’s economic growth slowed sharply in the second quarter, as strong frontrunning of U.S. tariffs in the early part of the year unwound, raising the chance that the Swiss central bank will cut interest rates to below zero later this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product rose 0.1% in the three months to the end of June, down from the 0.8% growth of the first quarter, statistical agency SECO said in a flash estimate on Friday. Growth in the first three months of 2025 was led by U.S.

President Trump’s planned 15 percent tariff on medicines from Europe has shined a spotlight on Ireland, which sends the United States tens of billions of dollars’ worth of cancer medications, weight-loss drug ingredients and other pharmaceutical products each year. No other country sends more, the New York Times reported. Manufacturing blockbuster medications there offers tax benefits for American drug companies. But the appeal of Ireland for the industry goes deeper: Drugmakers have long shifted their patents and profits there, as well, to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

Already struggling with “astronomical” input cost increases, independent brewers are set to face a further hike in their commercial water charges, the Irish Times reported. Despite the dramatic increases to their costs, independent brewers across Ireland are limited in their ability to pass them on to consumers, as they compete with far larger, commercial breweries. The confirmation of a 9.8 per cent hike in water charges has brewers concerned amid the closures of several well-known, award-winning breweries across the country.

Potato producer CêlaVita is expected to file for bankruptcy later this week with the potential loss of 215 jobs, DutchNews.nl reported. The company, based in Wezep, Gelderland, supplied supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and institutions across Europe, but had been struggling financially for some time. A month ago unions rejected a final offer from the company in negotiations for a new pay deal and said a majority of workers were prepared to take industrial action.