Headlines

Atlantia, the infrastructure group controlled by the billionaire Benetton family, has agreed to sell a majority stake in its toll road business following a bitter dispute with the Italian government over the fatal collapse of a Genoa bridge in 2018, the Financial Times reported. Under the terms of the deal, Atlantia will sell at least 51 per cent of its toll road business, Autostrade per l’Italia, to state-owned Italian lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, the government said on Wednesday.

The eurozone’s nascent recovery from the economic damage done by the coronavirus pandemic faces several potential threats, Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, has warned, after keeping its monetary policy on hold, the Financial Times reported. The ECB governing council on Thursday hit pause after four months of ramping up its monetary stimulus, as it entered what analysts called “a wait and see” period to assess the speed of economic recovery before launching new measures.

South Africa’s government has committed to secure funds for the overhaul of struggling state-owned South African Airways (SAA), the public enterprises and finance ministries said in a letter to the airline’s administrators seen by Reuters, Reuters reported. The administrators, who took over SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses, said they needed a letter of support from the government with a funding commitment for their restructuring plan to work.

Lebanon’s central bank has set up a committee to restructure financially stricken commercial banks and study their performance, according to a memo by the bank seen by Reuters on Thursday, Reuters reported. The panel will also propose measures to preserve the soundness of the banking sector, the memo said. Lebanese banks are poised for a major shake-out after the country plunged into a financial crisis last October that has ballooned prices, slashed jobs, and brought on capital controls that have frozen people out of their dollar savings.

Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group said on Thursday it reached a new purchase agreement with its secured lenders, in a move that would help kick-start the bidding process for the financially strapped circus troupe, Reuters reported. The Cirque said in a statement that it entered into a new “stalking horse” purchase agreement with its first-lien and second-lien secured lenders, confirming earlier reports.

More than 200 of Britain’s top financial experts have joined forces to design initiatives to help small businesses restructure and repay as much as 35 billion pounds in “unsustainable” COVID-19 relief debt, Reuters reported. TheCityUK Recapitalisation Group on Thursday proposed the launch of a UK Recovery Corporation (UKRC) to oversee a massive pile of government-guaranteed loans issued since lockdown, offering more manageable terms to borrowers and preventing a wave of bankruptcies borne by the taxpayer. “COVID-19 is a 100-year storm which has caused untold economic damage.

PizzaExpress is heading for a takeover by its lenders as early as this month in a debt-for-equity swap with Chinese owner Hony Capital that is also likely to involve closing some of its high street restaurants hard hit in the pandemic, the Financial Times reported. Investors in the £465m of senior secured bonds that back the company are in advanced talks over a restructuring deal, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Ecuador is coming under pressure to sweeten its $17.4bn debt restructuring after some bondholders balked at the terms of the deal it presented earlier this month, the Financial Times reported. The country — one of the poorest in Latin America — said in March that it would be unable to repay all its debts as it deals with the fallout of Covid-19 and a collapse in oil prices. Earlier this month, the government announced a provisional agreement to cut and stretch out repayments, with the backing of the holders of around half of its bonds, including heavyweights Ashmore and BlackRock.

Coronavirus and the end-2020 Brexit deadline have left UK firms facing historic uncertainties, prompting many to find more flexible ways to protect their foreign exchange exposure — even if these come at a higher initial cost, Reuters reported. The pandemic is expected to cause Britain’s biggest economic contraction in 300 years and swell unemployment, debt and corporate bankruptcies. An added risk is that Britain could cast off from the European Union next year without having agreed any trade deals.

The chief executive of UBI Banca has vowed to be a buyer rather than a seller in the consolidation of Italy’s fragmented banking sector, dismissing a takeover bid by the country’s largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo as anti-competitive, the Financial Times reported. “I understand that in certain countries it is desirable that large banks buy out smaller peers but . . . while Spain, France or the UK have several large banks, Italy only has one,” Victor Massiah told the Financial Times.