Headlines

Brazilian fertilizer company Fertilizantes Heringer SA has decided to close several of its plants and distribution centres as part of a restructuring plan to lower its debt burden, two sources told Reuters on Thursday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Heringer, one of the largest players in the Brazilian fertilizer market, sent a message to workers on Thursday in at least 10 installations, including plants and regional offices, advising them that they faced closure, according to a e-mail message seen by Reuters. Workers in those units would be laid off.

Fears of a eurozone slowdown have mounted after the economy stagnated at the end of 2018, growing just 0.2 per cent between the third and fourth quarters last year, the Financial Times reported. The flash estimate of growth from Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics bureau, is in line with the disappointing figure for the previous quarter, which put growth at its lowest level in more than four years, and tallies with economists’ forecasts. Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, fell into a technical recession after its second consecutive quarter of contraction.

The Italian economy fell into a technical recession in the last half of 2018 after a sharp increase in government borrowing costs and political uncertainty driven by Rome’s populist government’s stand-off with Brussels over its budget plans, the Financial Times reported. Official preliminary data showed that Italian gross domestic product contracted by 0.2 per cent in the last three months of 2018, following an 0.1 per cent drop in the third quarter. The contraction was worse than average forecasts of economists of a 0.1 per cent drop in GDP in the fourth quarter.

Freelance contractors caught in a controversial tax avoidance row with HM Revenue & Customs could be granted up to seven years to repay debts, MPs were told, as the campaign to scrap the charges gathers momentum, the Financial Times reported. People earning less than £30,000 a year who face difficulty paying the loan charge — a new tax due to come in on April 5 that could affect between 50,000 to 100,000 people — will automatically be given seven years to pay, the authority told MPs at a Treasury select committee on Wednesday.

Eight banks are being targeted in a European Union probe that alleges traders colluded to acquire and trade euro government bonds, a month after the EU regulators implicated lenders in a separate bond-trading case, Bloomberg News reported. The European Commission didn’t identify the banks being investigated for "a collusive scheme that aimed at distorting competition" for trading sovereign bonds issued by eurozone governments from 2007 to 2012.

Canada’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that bankrupt oil companies must clean up inactive wells, overturning lower court decisions that prioritized paying creditors and potentially raising the risks of investment in the industry, Reuters reported. The 5-2 ruling means that the Alberta Energy Regulator, which had appealed the earlier court decisions, can order the cleanup of inactive wells even when their owners have filed for bankruptcy protection. “Bankruptcy is not a license to ignore rules,” the court said in a written decision.

Brazilian airline Avianca Brasil, which filed for bankruptcy protection in December, expects that advanced loan talks with hedge fund Elliott Management Corp will avoid the grounding of its planes, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Avianca Brasil has been talking to Elliott about the hedge fund’s providing a 250 million real ($68.59 million) loan, the sources said. No agreement has yet been reached, however, and the aircraft lessors have not been paid, the people added, asking for anonymity to disclose private talks.

The number of British restaurant insolvencies hit a record high in 2018 and have doubled since 2010, a study by accountants Price Bailey showed on Wednesday as the sector struggles with market saturation and competition from delivery apps, Reuters reported. There were 1,442 restaurant insolvencies in 2018, up 40 percent compared to 2017, Insolvency Service data obtained by Price Bailey showed. Four restaurant businesses a day are going bust, up from under two a day in 2010.

South African miners support a restructuring of struggling state power firm Eskom to boost competition in the electricity supply industry, an industry body said on Wednesday, warning that tariff hikes alone would not solve Eskom’s problems, Reuters reported. Top government officials will discuss whether to split Eskom into generation, transmission and distribution units at a cabinet meeting starting on Wednesday as part of efforts to rescue the company from financial crisis.

Kosovo will offer its loss-making state-owned telecom company to private investors by the end of the year, the country’s economy minister said on Wednesday, its third attempt to sell a stake in the company in the past decade, Reuters reported. In 2013 the government cancelled an already agreed sale to Germany’s ACP Axos Capital Gmbh and U.S.-based investor Najafi after failing to secure parliament backing for the 277 million euro deal.