Headlines

The Wirecard AG scandal could spark a revamp of how the European Union carries out financial supervision, top official Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times, Bloomberg News reported. The German tech company’s collapse shows that previous attempts to bolster financial watchdogs in Brussels were a “missed opportunity” and need another push, according to Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s executive vice-president for economic policy. “We are looking at how we can strengthen the system to avoid that kind of situation happening again,” he said in an FT report published Sunday.

Japan is trying to both contain a resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak and support the economy, especially the tourism sector, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Bloomberg News reported. Striking a balance is “extremely difficult,” Suga said Sunday on public broadcaster NHK, adding the government is helping businesses avoid bankruptcies through virus relief measures such as special loan programs. The government will maintain a travel campaign that excludes Tokyo to support domestic tourism, a key growth driver for regional economies, he added.

Emerging-market stocks and currencies are within touching distance of erasing their pandemic-fueled losses of 2020, Bloomberg News reported. Too bad the virus is still running riot, economies are shrinking and central banks are getting low on firepower. In fact, the backdrop is so grim that investors may soon start to take the view that prices are starting to defy gravity. After falling more than 30% by March, developing-nation stocks as measured by MSCI Inc.’s benchmark index are just 3% below the level at which they started the year.

NatWest became the latest in a string of British banks to report a sharp jump in provisions to absorb an expected surge in bad debts due to the worsening outlook for the UK economy, the Financial Times reported. The company, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, reported a £2.1bn impairment charge for the second quarter, more than twice the size of its first-quarter provision. NatWest’s impairment charge pushed it to a £1.3bn pre-tax loss for the three months to June, compared with a £1.7bn profit in the same period last year.

When Santander entered the UK in 2004 with the acquisition of former building society Abbey National, the move completed the group’s transformation from a family-run regional mortgage lender into a multinational giant, the Financial Times reported. At the time Europe’s largest cross-border banking deal, the acquisition marked the culmination of a string of acquisitions under its swashbuckling “presidente” Emilio Botín, whose family have controlled Banco Santander since the early 20th century.

Argentina’s creditors have approached several international organizations to seek endorsement for a proposal to change the rules that govern some of the country’s overseas securities, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported. The International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Treasury, the International Capital Market Association and the Institute of International Finance are among the organizations that have been informally approached by bondholders, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter.

LATAM Airlines will fire “at least” 2,700 workers in Brazil, including pilots, its Brazilian arm said on Saturday, as the bankrupt carrier struggles to cut costs and cope with an industry collapse due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. In a statement, LATAM Brasil said it opened a voluntary redundancy process on Friday which will run through Aug. 4, after which a further minimum 2,700 jobs will be cut. The announcement followed the breakdown in talks with the SNA union over workers’ pay, the statement said. O Globo and O Estado de S.

Noble Corp., the offshore drilling contractor, filed for bankruptcy with a plan to cut more than $3.4 billion of debt after a crash in crude prices made undersea oil wells too expensive, Bloomberg News reported. The Chapter 11 filing in Texas would eliminate all of the company’s bond borrowings by swapping debt for equity, the company said in a statement. Noteholders agreed to invest $200 million of new capital through second-lien notes, and Noble has lined up a $675 million secured revolving credit facility backed by current lenders including JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Intesa Sanpaolo’s victorious battle for rival UBI has sent shockwaves through Italy’s fragile banking sector as financiers try and work out who will be next in an industry ripe for consolidation, Reuters reported. The unsolicited bid, Europe’s largest banking deal in a decade, has set the stage for further mergers in the fragmented sector as pandemic-induced losses mount, adding to lenders’ existing struggles with negative interest rates and the need to adapt to a fast-changing digital world.

Germany’s gross domestic product shrank at the fastest pace in half a century in the second quarter of 2020, according to preliminary data that confirm the depth of the recession in Europe’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. GDP contracted 10.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, the largest decline since quarterly calculations began in 1970 — and far bigger than the fall at the height of the global financial crisis, the national statistical agency said on Tuesday.