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German industrial orders have continued their decline, dropping by 0.6 per cent in August from the previous month and adding to the gloom hanging over the eurozone’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. Data from Germany’s economy ministry on Monday showed that the country’s larger than expected drop in industrial orders was caused by a sharp fall in domestic demand, which shrank 2.6 per cent. It was only partly offset by a 0.9 per cent rise in foreign orders.
Greece revealed an ambitious budget for next year that assumes growth will accelerate to 2.8 per cent from a projected 2.0 per cent this year, driven by higher investment inflows and cuts in corporate and personal income tax, the Financial Times reported. Theodoros Skylakakis, deputy finance minister, said on Monday the centre-right government was also committed to achieving a 3.5 per cent primary budget surplus next year — before making debt repayments — as agreed with Greece’s international creditors.
The heated auction between buyout firm Bain Capital and Austria’s AMS AG for the German LED-maker Osram Licht AG has ended in no deal, a Bloomberg View reported. The prospect of a transaction being rekindled in the near term looks bleak — though not impossible over the longer run. It beggars belief that a tense round of bidding can culminate in no more than a tangled mess. But this is regrettably often the way with German M&A.
In New Delhi’s bustling Malviya Nagar market, the local Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank branch was known for its helpful staff — and for offering interest rates on deposits that were 0.75 percentage points higher than mainstream commercial banks, the Financial Times reported. “The staff here were very friendly,” says Tilak Arora, 43, the owner of a video game parlour whose life-savings of Rs10m ($141,000) was deposited at PMC. “They also did not demand too many documents to open the account.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman is facing questioning in Spain over allegations he illegally laid “economic siege” to an acquisition target while camouflaging his true role, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times. An anti-corruption prosecutor suspects Mr Fridman broke the country’s criminal code in 2016 in an attempt to take control of Zed World Wide, a Spanish mobile content and services business that later declared insolvency, the Financial Times reported.
Just three years after Argentina’s local markets were brought back from the dead, they’re barely clinging to life, Bloomberg News reported. Assets under management at local banks and brokerages have plummeted 25% since a surprise August primary vote that signaled pro-business President Mauricio Macri has little chance of winning re-election this month. Stock trading has fallen by half, and local bond volume is down by two-thirds.
Bondholders in PizzaExpress are pressing the company to engage in restructuring talks as fears mount about the future of the 54-year-old business, the Financial Times reported. The pizza chain and debtholders have consulted financial advisers ahead of third-quarter results next month, which are expected to reveal poor summer trading that will add further pressure on a balance sheet laden with £1.1bn of net debt.
Ivorian banks saddled with unpaid debts of around $250 million by the bankruptcy of former top exporter SAF-Cacao are pleased with progress after the acquisition of its assets by Societe Agricole du Cafe-Cacao (SACC), sources at the banks said, Reuters reported. SAF-Cacao, formerly the largest cocoa exporter in southwestern Ivory Coast, was liquidated in mid-2018 after defaulting on debt in the wake of a disastrous 2016/17 season, when world cocoa prices fell 40%.
Argentina’s Sergio Massa, a key ally of presidential front-runner Alberto Fernandez, said on Friday that the International Monetary Fund should give the indebted country time to revive economic growth to be able to pay off its debts, Reuters reported. Massa, a former Argentine chief of staff who struck an alliance with Peronist opposition leader Fernandez earlier this year, said the IMF should see the relationship with Latin America’s No. 3 economy as a long-term journey.