Air France plans to offer about 8,300 staff incentives to leave in a bid to cut costs without stirring a political backlash after receiving a massive state bailout, people familiar with the proposal said, Bloomberg News reported. The Air France-KLM unit will seek the voluntary exit of around 300 pilots, 2,000 cabin crew and 6,000 ground staff, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t public. The cuts could affect roughly 17% of workers, though that may change after union and management talks, they said.
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They are the A-team — respected veterans of Airbus, Europe’s aerospace champion, recalled from retirement to defend the industry’s fragile supply chain against a devastating collapse in demand, the Financial Times reported. Each has been chosen to lead a national task force: Tom Williams, former chief operating officer of Airbus commercial, for the UK; Didier Evrard, ex-head of aircraft programmes, for France; and Bernhard Gerwert, previously chief executive of the defence arm, for Germany. The aim is to bring together each country’s big aerospace manufacturers to plan for the sur
Plastic car parts maker Novares went into temporary receivership at the end of April, one of the first big French firms to seek protection from creditors due to the coronavirus crisis, despite government bailout schemes and loan guarantees, Reuters reported. Novares, whose sales have collapsed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, said on Monday it had taken the step after struggling to find a rapid agreement with its banks and shareholders and solve a coronavirus-related cash crunch.
BNP Paribas warned coronavirus could knock a fifth off its 2020 profits as it revealed a €184m blow to its equities trading division after complex derivatives products suffered in volatile markets, the Financial Times reported. The French bank said on Tuesday its net income could fall 15 per cent to 20 per cent this year, with Covid-19 prompting a “drastic revisit of the 2020 macroeconomic scenario”. The lender also earmarked an additional half a billion euros to cover potential loan losses.
Air France-KLM won European Union approval for a 7 billion-euro ($7.7 billion) French aid package that Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said will lead to cutbacks in domestic services, Bloomberg News reported. The carrier obtained a state guarantee and a subordinated shareholder loan, a financial life line executives say was needed for its survival in the face of a collapse in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic that has pummeled the global industry.
Société Générale will revamp the trading arm of its investment bank for the second time in a year after suffering a devastating hit to its core equities business, chief executive Frédéric Oudéa told the Financial Times. The French bank fell to a shock loss of €326m in the first quarter after revenue in its equity trading unit — long hailed by executives as a key strength — collapsed almost 99 per cent to just €9m, the Financial Times reported.
France expects Group of 20 nations will agree to a debt moratorium for African nations in a conference call later Wednesday, an official at the Elysee Palace said. President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for debt relief to support African nations caught up in the Covid-19 pandemic and on Monday called for a massive cancellation of the continent’s sovereign debt, Bloomberg News reported. A moratorium would allow African countries “to take a breath and not pay interest,” Macron told Radio France Internationale in an interview released Wednesday.
The French government was forced to revise its economic and financial forecasts for the second time in less than a week after President Emmanuel Macron extended the lockdown to combat the coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported. France will base an emergency budget on economic output contracting 8% this year, instead of 6% as it had planned last week. Extra spending to support companies and workers through the confinement will increase the budget deficit, and the situation could get worse still as there are uncertainties about the health crisis in Asia, the economy in the U.S.