Headlines

Eurozone banks are set to be tested on how many days they can last without a fresh injection of liquidity, under a new exercise designed by the region’s financial supervisor, the Financial Times reported. The European Central Bank, which supervises the eurozone’s largest lenders through its Single Supervisory Mechanism arm, said on Wednesday that it would launch a “sensitivity analysis” to judge how banks would handle an “adverse and extreme shock” to liquidity.

Samarco Mineracao SA, the Brazilian mining venture that hasn’t operated since a deadly dam collapse in 2015, will seek to reboot talks with creditors after one of its parent companies suffered an even worse disaster at its own site, according to people involved in the discussions. Last month’s deadly accident at a Vale SA tailings dam in Minas Gerais state has upended the outlook for Samarco, which is jointly owned by Vale and BHP Group Ltd, Bloomberg News reported.

Italy is just the latest major borrower to benefit from searing global demand for sovereign bonds, with investors casting aside concerns about the country’s relapse into recession to help the government lock in funding over the next 30 years, Bloomberg News reported. Italy’s carpe diem sale is allowing it to raise 8 billion euros ($9.1 billion) as investors scramble to lend to some of the world’s biggest borrowers, including Japan, the U.S. and Greece.

The benchmark equity gauge of India’s 50 biggest companies reclaimed the 11,000 level after four months on Wednesday, but not all investors are celebrating. Only a handful of stocks, including Reliance Industries Ltd. and software exporters Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. have driven the gains in the NSE Nifty 50 Index since the year started, Bloomberg News reported. What’s more, about 40 percent of the gauge’s members are trading below their prices from three months ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

A week after Christian Sewing took charge at Deutsche Bank AG in April, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s newly appointed finance minister, Olaf Scholz, buttonholed the chief executive officer of Germany’s largest lender at an event in Berlin. The 15-minute exchange -- between canapes and ceremonial speeches in a Prussian palace at the German banking association’s annual reception -- marked the start of a rapprochement between Merkel’s government and the embattled financial giant, Bloomberg News reported.

Interserve has struck a rescue deal that will see lenders take control of the company by swapping millions of pounds worth of debt for new shares, giving the troubled outsourcing group a chance of survival, Reuters reported. Racing to avert a collapse like that of peer Carillion, Interserve said on Wednesday it would cut debt by more than half to about 275 million pounds after creditors wrote off loans in return for new equity worth 97.5 percent of the share capital. Existing shareholders, who saw the company lose 90 percent of its value in 2018, will largely be wiped out.

Funds controlled by activist investor Elliott Management have agreed to extend $75 million in financing to bankrupt airline Avianca Brasil, according to documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday. A term sheet signed by Manchester Securities Corp, Elliott Associates and Elliott International was submitted to the court overseeing Avianca Brasil’s bankruptcy proceedings on Monday, the document shows.

A Scottish shopping centre sold at auction for £310,000 on Tuesday after being placed on sale with a reserve price of £1, as a tough retail climate cuts into property values, the Financial Times reported. The Postings shopping centre in Kirkcaldy was sold by the asset manager Columbia Threadneedle, which set the low reserve price because the centre — which has several vacant units — currently costs more to run than it earns in rent. The centre, built in the 1980s, most recently changed hands for £10.3m in 2003, according to Estates Gazette.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman has offered to buy Dia Group in a deal that gives the struggling Spanish supermarket chain an equity value of €417m, a deep discount from its €2.7bn valuation at the end of 2017, the Financial Times reported. Mr Fridman’s holding company, LetterOne, which owns 29 per cent of Dia through its L1 Retail fund, has offered to purchase the rest of the company for €0.67 a share, a premium of 56 per cent to Monday’s closing price. LetterOne bought much of its existing stake early last year, when shares were trading at about €4.

Last-ditch talks to save Interserve, one of the UK’s biggest government contractors, have narrowed in on a debt-for-equity swap, with hopes rising that a restructuring will be announced this week, the Financial Times reported. The group’s board met on Tuesday after weeks of fraught negotiations with lenders and the Cabinet Office over rescuing a company that employs 45,000 people across services such as schools and hospitals. “Everyone is running ragged trying to find a settlement,” said one person involved in the talks. “It’s a bit like Brexit.