Headlines

Expansion costs at part of the country’s fastest growing hospitality group, Paddy McKillen jnr’s Press Up group last year put a lid on returns, with pre-tax profits halving to €887,929, The Irish Times reported. New accounts filed by Orsen Ltd with the Companies Office show profits at this part of Press Up fell as revenues increased by 22.6 per cent from €57.86 million to €70.95 million. Press Up opened 12 new businesses across eight new sites last year.

Indian shares edged lower on Thursday, after retail inflation breached the central bank’s medium-term target of 4% for the first time in 15 months, while lenders fretted about a possible insolvency of Vodafone Idea, Reuters reported. Annual retail inflation rose to 4.62% last month on higher food prices, but most economists expect the central bank to look past the inflation print and cut rates for a sixth straight time next month. Higher inflation and reports of a liquidation of Vodafone Idea were pulling down the markets, said Sumit Pokharna, vice president, Kotak Securities.

Investors are souring on how much they can recoup from a potential Argentine default as President-elect Alberto Fernandez procrastinates on plans to save his nation from financial ruin, Bloomberg News reported. Argentine dollar bonds due in 2028 now fetch as little as to 36 cents on the dollar -- a drop of about 20 cents since the immediate aftermath of the leftist’s surprise primary victory in August. A mountain of debt, staggeringly high inflation and little sign of who Fernandez will pick for his cabinet -- and which policies they will implement -- have bondholders begging for clarity.

The Dutch government is throwing its weight behind challenging London’s position as Europe’s legal hub for the lucrative business of restructuring the debt of struggling companies, Bloomberg News reported. With Britain due to leave the European Union by the end of January, the Netherlands is bidding to chip away at the legal business that runs through English courts with a proposed reform of insolvency laws set to be approved by parliament early next year. This outlines a new bankruptcy code taking elements of U.S.

South Africa’s post office is cutting several hundred jobs, the second state-owned company in as many days to detail plans to lay off workers as the government looks to slash its wage bill, Bloomberg News reported. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni signaled last month he’s intent on lowering the government’s payroll costs, which consume 35% of national spending. The cuts are part of a plan to defend the nation’s last remaining investment-grade credit rating, which has a negative outlook.

France added to the growing chorus of lawmakers and executives seeing consolidation as an avenue to revive Europe’s ailing banks, ahead of a key meeting that may jumpstart a plan to create a single market for the industry, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, speaking in an interview in Paris on Tuesday, said mergers to create “critical-size, global actors” in European finance would be a “good thing.” He backed a call by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to complete the project for a banking union that would make such deals easier.

A plan by the owner of PizzaExpress Ltd. to buy back almost half of the company’s 200 million pounds of unsecured notes faces resistance from at least two groups of bond investors, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital is seeking to purchase as much as 80 million pounds ($103 million) of the U.K. chain’s bonds in a move that may precede talks for a potential debt restructuring.

Lebanon just got one of its starkest warnings yet that it will need to restructure its $30 billion of Eurobonds. Franklin Templeton, which oversees more than $690 billion of assets worldwide, said the government will have to renegotiate the debt load to stave off an economic collapse, Bloomberg News reported. “The system is broken and the credibility is gone,” Mohieddine Kronfol, the firm’s Dubai-based chief investment officer for Middle Eastern and North African fixed income, said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Tracy Alloway and Yousef Gamal El-Din.

A Chinese conglomerate’s rescue plan for Britain’s second-biggest steelmaker has been met by doubts from unions and industry insiders who question the buyer’s motives and business logic, the Financial Times reported. Jingye Group, a privately owned Chinese group whose interests span hotels, property, tourism and chemicals alongside steelmaking, agreed to buy British Steel from the UK’s Insolvency Service.

New Look is still suffering from falling sales more than a year after reaching agreement on a restructuring of its store estate, adding to fears about the health of the UK high street as the election campaign gets under way, the Financial Times reported. In the half year to September 28 the fashion retailer said same-store sales were down 7.4 per cent in the UK and Ireland, with a strong summer more than cancelled out by a poor September.