Headlines

The French government offered to buy Atos SE’s advanced computing assets for as much as €625 million ($653 million) after an earlier offer from the state expired, Bloomberg News reported. The non-binding bid gives the business an enterprise value of €500 million and may include additional payments based on future earnings, the company said in a statement on Monday. The offer, which expires in May, includes Atos’s artificial intelligence business as well as its supercomputers, which are used by researchers, the nuclear power industry and the military.

The sports equipment manufacturer Le Coq Sportif has been placed under judicial restructuring proceedings by the Paris Commercial Court, FashionUnited.uk reported. "Le Coq Sportif is relying on this procedure to respond to the challenges facing the brand while protecting its 330 employees and hundreds of indirect jobs," parent company Airesis said on Friday. The troubled company said in October that it was looking for "financing solutions".

Creditors have recovered around Rs 3.55 lakh crore through resolution of 1,068 cases under the insolvency law till September this year, the government said on Monday. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Harsh Malhotra also said that a total of 1,963 Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) cases are ongoing and out of them, 1,388 have exceeded the time limit of 270 days, the Economic Times of India reported.

China’s central bank kept a key policy rate steady in November and drained billions in liquidity from the financial system via a medium-term liquidity management tool, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China on Monday injected 900 billion yuan of liquidity, or about $124.26 billion, into the banking system via its one-year medium-term lending facility at an unchanged rate of 2.00%. That compared with a total of 1.45 trillion yuan of such loans due this month, representing a net drain of 550 billion yuan in November.

Japan’s cabinet on Friday approved an economic stimulus package worth more than $140 billion, in Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s latest push to tackle inflation and boost growth after his coalition suffered a bruising electoral defeat last month, the Wall Street Journal reported. The package totaling 21.9 trillion yen, equivalent to $141.71 billion, is aimed at easing rising living costs and promoting business innovation and investment.

Anglo American Plc agreed to sell its steelmaking coal business to Peabody Energy Corp. for a fee that could rise to as much as $3.78 billion, as the miner’s restructuring gathers pace, Bloomberg News reported. Anglo is looking to dramatically simplify — and shrink — its business in a move that was announced during a successful rebuttal of a $49 billion approach from BHP Group earlier this year. For Peabody, the deal will significantly shift its product mix as the U.S. miner seeks to focus on metallurgical coal.

Business confidence in Germany slipped this month, amid mounting pressures on the country’s industrial base, alongside concerns raised by the fracture of its governing coalition and the threat of U.S. trade tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Ifo Institute said Monday that its business-climate index fell to 85.7 in November from 86.5 last month, the fifth fall in six months. The reading also lagged economists’ expectations of 86.1, from a poll compiled by The Wall Street Journal.

Israel’s central bank left interest rates unchanged as it weighs a war-related economic slowdown and quickening inflation, Bloomberg News reported. The Bank of Israel held its base case rate at 4.5% on Monday, in line with the estimates of all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. It was the monetary policy committee’s seventh straight hold and last decision of the year, with the next meeting scheduled for early January.

Thailand's banking system has large excess liquidity and the central bank has not tightened its lending supervision, an assistant governor said on Monday, reflecting banks' reluctance to lend, Reuters reported. Banks' lending decisions will depend on debtors' ability to repay debts, Sakkapop Panyanukul said in an article, opens new tab published on the Bank of Thailand's website. The banking system has had a lot of excess liquidity over the past 10 years, as reflected by deposits and investments of commercial banks at the BOT in the past, he said.

A group of investors led by Elliott Investment Management faces new obstacles to taking control of Venezuela’s oil refiner Citgo Petroleum in a court-ordered auction while seeking to shield themselves from legal claims against the cash-strapped country, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., said in an order on Wednesday he isn’t inclined to let the sale proceed without preserving the legal liabilities.