Headlines

Atos said that the French state offered to acquire parts of its big data and security arm for up to 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion), including debt, in a bid to prevent a collapse of the French army contractor and Paris Olympics information-technology partner, the Wall Street Journal reported. The French state’s interest could offer a potential lifeline to a company under pressure to reduce a heavy debt pile after previous attempts to offload the units fell through.

Insolvent Austrian property company Signa Prime Selection, part of the troubled Signa empire, has sold the luxury Hotel Bauer on Venice’s Grand Canal as part of a deal with German industrialist family business Schoeller Group, Signa Prime said on Friday, Reuters reported. Signa, the property group founded by Rene Benko, has become the biggest casualty so far in Europe’s real estate crisis, with creditors filing claims totalling billions of euros.

Japan intervened to prop up the yen after it hit a multidecade low against the dollar on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The currency has plummeted against the dollar this year, hurt by increasing doubts among traders about the timing of U.S. interest rate cuts. The yen weakened to around 160 per dollar on Monday, but bounced back to around 155 per dollar after Japanese authorities started buying yen and selling dollars, according to the people.

China’s central bank has advised some regional lenders to curtail their ultra-long bond investments to mitigate risks, Bloomberg News reported. City and rural commercial banks in at least two eastern provinces were instructed in recent weeks to avoid significant exposure to these securities. Under the guidance from local branches of the People’s Bank of China, the regional banks have also been asked to reduce duration and leverage on bond holdings.

German inflation accelerated for the first time since December, highlighting warnings by the European Central Bank that there’ll be bumps on the path back to the 2% target, Bloomberg News reported. Price growth came in at 2.4% in April, while economists polled by Bloomberg had expected it to remain steady at 2.3%. Energy was a key driver of the uptick. A similar dynamic was on display in Spain earlier Monday, with inflation quickening to 3.4% after the government continued to remove support that helped keep a lid on soaring energy costs.

Spanish inflation accelerated for a second month as the government continued to remove support that had helped keep a lid on soaring energy costs, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 3.4% from a year earlier in April, data published Monday showed. That’s in line with the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Stripping out energy and some food costs, core inflation dipped more than anticipated to 2.9% — the lowest level since early 2022. Spanish numbers kick off a raft of data across the euro area, with German inflation later Monday also projected to quicken a touch.

Laurentian University's board of governors has approved a budget of just over $201.7 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year with $8 million being set aside to enact recommendations to bring the university up to modern operating standards following its insolvency, CBC.ca reported. The university declared insolvency in February 2021; the first public post-secondary institution to choose federal legislation meant to restructure commercial enterprises in financial crisis. As a result of restructuring, 69 undergraduate and graduate programs and 195 faculty positions were cut at Laurentian.

In 2019, a little-known Chinese carmaker named Zhido went bust after Beijing cut subsidies for the tiny electric cars it made, crushing its sales. Now it is back. Earlier this month, the company released a boxy new mini-electric vehicle called “Caihong,” or “Rainbow” in Chinese, which comes in seven pastel colors—including “Mint Mambo”—and has a starting price equivalent to around $4,400, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Poland’s ruling coalition said it’s aiming to ensure that the nation avoids a scenario under which the level of government debt breaches a limit imposed by the European Union, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s administration is now working on a draft fiscal plan following eight years of Law and Justice government. This year’s budget sees the debt at 54% of gross domestic product, while the Finance Ministry said there is a risk that the level of 60% may be breached in the next few years.

After years of fits and starts, Venezuela is setting the stage for one of the largest and most complex debt restructurings in decades — unwinding a $154 billion web of defaulted bonds, loans and legal judgments owed to creditors from Wall Street to Russia, Bloomberg News reported. President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s recent hiring of Rothschild & Co. as a financial adviser marks a first step in a massive undertaking that’s likely to drag on for years.