Headlines

Philip Day’s retail empire could be broken up after the tycoon launched a review of high street chains including Peacocks and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill following a number of unsolicited offers, the Financial Times reported. Mr Day, who has made a fortune by buying and restructuring distressed retail businesses, has received interest from potential bidders for all or part of value fashion chain Peacocks and his collection of “heritage brands”, which includes Jaeger, Austin Reed and Jacques Vert.

Rolls-Royce is in talks with sovereign wealth funds, including Singapore’s GIC, as part of a plan to raise around £2.5bn from investors next month, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter, the Financial Times reported. The UK aero-engine group is working with bankers at Goldman Sachs on the planned equity raise as it looks to become the latest company to tap stock market investors to repair a balance sheet badly damaged by the pandemic. The group is aiming to launch the equity raise in the first weeks of October, two of these people said.

South Africa has pledged 10.5 billion rand ($650 million) to South African Airways (SAA), one of the administrators of the ailing state-owned airline said on Friday, Reuters reported. The administrators took control of SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses and have been trying to keep it afloat as the coronavirus pandemic compounds its longstanding problems. Administrators published a restructuring plan in June, but the more than 10 billion rand required for it to work has not materialised since the airline’s creditors approved it in July.

Kenya Airways Plc needs at least $500 million to ride out the coronavirus crisis after first-half revenue plunged almost 50%, Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka said in an interview, Bloomberg News reported. The carrier, which is 49% state owned, must also be fully nationalized alongside Kenya Airports Authority, which runs the Nairobi hub, under a holding structure similar to that of regional leader Ethiopian Airlines Group, he said. “If we don’t restructure the airline, and take the airline as is into this organization, then we are doing a disservice to the taxpayer,” Kilavuka said.

Argentina’s honeymoon with the International Monetary Fund is about to be tested as it looks to update a $57 billion agreement struck two years ago that failed to prevent a slide into recession and the country’s ninth sovereign default, Reuters reported. The IMF, often the target of angry protests in the streets of Buenos Aires, has looked to soften its tone with Argentina as the center-left Peronist government has restructured over $100 billion with private creditors this year. Now it is IMF money on the table.

Germany would relax insolvency rules under proposals set out on Saturday to help avert a wave of bankruptcies in Europe’s biggest economy, provided companies hit by the coronavirus crisis have a robust business model, Reuters reported. Keen to avoid bankruptcies and mass layoffs, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has launched a range of stimulus and relief measures as Germany braces for its biggest slump since World War Two, having shrunk by an unprecedented 9.7% in the second quarter.

Caixabank has agreed to buy Bankia for 4.3 billion euros ($5.1 billion) in an all-share deal that creates Spain’s biggest domestic lender and signals a pick up in mergers among Europe’s banks as they battle the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The merger will create the largest domestic bank by assets with a combined market value of more than 16 billion euros ($19 billion), in a deal underpinned by annual cost savings of 770 million euros, the companies said on Friday.

South African Rugby (SA Rugby) has placed the Southern Kings into voluntary liquidation because of debts of R55 million ($3.37 million) and no chance of generating any income this year, Reuters reported. The Kings, based in Port Elizabeth, were last month withdrawn from all competition due to their financial position following a failed takeover bid that forced SA Rugby and the Eastern Province Rugby Union to take control.

The European Central Bank has relaxed regulations on eurozone banks, freeing up as much as €73bn of capital in an attempt to boost lending and prevent the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic from turning into a credit crunch, the Financial Times reported. The move announced by the ECB on Thursday grants lenders extra capital relief, enabling them to increase their lending to governments, businesses and households. It follows a similar, albeit more generous, move by the US Federal Reserve in April.

Woolworths Holdings is reviewing its South African clothing business and the food division of Australian unit David Jones to respond to fashion trends and stem losses amid a slump in earnings, its chief executive said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Roy Bagattini, who took over as CEO of the fashion and food retailer in February, is on a mission to improve the performance of the David Jones department store chain. His predecessor Ian Moir paid a premium to bulk up in Australia and turn the company into a leading southern hemisphere retailer.