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The European Union’s top economic policy makers are exposing a gulf in their views on how to run the economy after the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. European Central Bank Executive Board member Fabio Panetta said on Monday that monetary officials should retain the “unconventional flexibility” they granted themselves during the crisis, keeping borrowing costs low until government spending helps push up inflation. Hours later, his policy-making colleagues Jens Weidmann and Robert Holzmann said the ECB’s emergency powers are temporary and must end once the emergency is over.
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Canadian aerospace firms are struggling to hire back workers to meet resurgent travel demand in the latest evidence of a post-pandemic labor crunch, industry executives said, Reuters reported. The squeeze has emerged as a warning signal for aviation's recovery internationally and accelerates a shift in the workforce toward fast-growth sectors like electric vehicles, they said.
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A group of creditors to Intralot SA agreed to provide almost 148 million euros ($177 million) to the beleaguered gaming company to pay off some of its bonds due September and sweeten the terms of a restructuring deal that’s been under negotiations for months, Bloomberg News reported. Under the new proposal, part of the 250 million euros of Intralot’s bonds maturing Sept. 15 would be paid out at par by a group of investors who’ve been discussing the deal with the company, according to a statement.
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Restaurants and cafes in Moscow on Monday began requesting that patrons provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test as the Russian capital faces a surge of new infections, the Associated Press reported. According to a decision by city authorities last week, all Moscow restaurants, cafes and bars must only admit customers who have been vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 in the past six months or can provide a negative coronavirus test from the previous 72 hours.
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A controversial Christchurch, New Zealand-based businessman, who was once a director of a Headhunters-linked debt collecting firm, has declared himself bankrupt, Stuff reported. Richard Logan Freeman, a former heavyweight boxer and racing car driver, was put into bankruptcy on June 21. It’s understood he declared himself insolvent after the High Court awarded $350,000 in damages against him earlier this year for making defamatory remarks about earthquake advocate Bryan Staples.
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Vietnam's growing dominance as a furniture exporter is at risk as trade authorities in the U.S., its biggest market, probe the country's timber industry and its ties to illegal logging abroad, Nikkei Asia reported. The sector has boomed in recent years, thanks in part to former U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war with China, which saw tariffs as high as 25% slapped on Chinese furniture exports. Vietnam, in fact, overtook China last year in furniture exports to the U.S., shipping $7.4 billion worth of the goods, compared with China's $7.3 billion, reported Vietnam News Agency.
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A bad bank in India that’s expected to launch this month may help reduce one of the world’s worst bad-loan piles but market participants say it’s a long path ahead, Bloomberg News reported. The new institution, which is set to start operations by the end of June, is likely to handle stressed debt worth 2 trillion rupees ($27 billion) over time, according to a BloombergQuint report. That would be about a quarter of the nation’s non-performing debt load.
The company behind Amigo Loans has been given an extra three-month lifeline from its lender as the business tries to stave off collapse, Yahoo.com reported. The guarantor lender said that its bank had extended the grace period it had given Amigo to September 24. The waiver was set to run out on Friday. During this period the bank will not take action if Amigo breaks the conditions attached to the so-called securitisation facility. The amount available to Amigo through the facility was also slashed to £100 million from £250 million.
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The insolvency administrator of Air Berlin is set to sue Deutsche Börse subsidiary Clearstream to recover €497.8 million, the Luxembourg Times reported. The complaint was due to be filed with a Frankfurt regional court on Friday, said administrators for Air Berlin, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017. Clearstream Banking AG is “registered as a shareholder of the ordinary shares of Air Berlin PLC in the shareholder register of Air Berlin PLC in the UK “, the administrator said.
Corp Group Banking SA, a Chilean financial holding company controlled by billionaire Alvaro Saieh, filed for bankruptcy after the coronavirus pandemic sparked an economic slowdown that worsened fortunes in the banking sector, Bloomberg News reported. The Santiago-based company on Friday sought chapter 11 protection from creditors in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The move was expected after the company skipped an interest payment last year on $500 million of 6.75% notes due 2023 and didn’t cure it when a grace period expired Oct. 15.