Headlines

Demand for loans among eurozone businesses was flat the beginning of 2019 despite record-low interest rates, increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to take further action to bolster the bloc’s economy, the Financial Times reported. Data from the ECB on Tuesday indicated the expansion in loan requests that began in mid-2015 had ended, with the percentage of banks reporting an increase in demand for loans to businesses in the previous quarter falling to 0 per cent.

Most of the world’s best-performing bank stocks are now in China, a nation that’s barely started to recover from last year’s liquidity crunch, Bloomberg News reported. After snapping up Ping An Bank Co., traders have turned their attention to its larger rival China Merchants Bank Co. The Hong Kong shares jumped 15 percent in nine days through Monday to an all-time high, the longest winning streak since 2007. It was also near a record in the onshore market Tuesday.

The global economy has slowed sharply since last summer and will rely on a “precarious” boost from a few emerging markets to reverse the loss of momentum, the IMF has predicted in its latest economic forecast, the Financial Times reported. Cutting its outlook for 2019 and 2020, the fund judged that advanced economies would “continue to slow gradually” into next year while emerging economies would play a more positive role, led by an end to crisis conditions in Turkey and Argentina and stabilisation in the all-important Chinese growth rate.

Italy’s populist coalition government has formally conceded that economic growth will be sharply lower this year than it had previously forecast, underlining its struggle to reconcile plans for higher public spending with a stubbornly slow domestic economy, the Financial Times reported. Following a meeting of ministers on Tuesday, the Italian government approved an updated budget plan that forecasts gross domestic product will be 0.2 per cent in 2019, bringing its estimates closer in line with the expectations of the IMF and vast majority of private sector economists.

An entity set up to finance affiliates of Etihad Airways PJSC said Jet Airways India Ltd. has become the third carrier in the group to fall behind on interest payments, Bloomberg News reported. EA Partners I, a vehicle created in 2015 to allow Etihad to provide funds to airlines in which it owned stakes, said in a statement that the Indian carrier failed to make a payment on March 19 on account of "temporary liquidity constraints." Etihad set up two vehicles, EA Partners I and II, which sold $1.2 billion of bonds to raise funds for several airlines.

Turkey plans to shore up its battered banks by injecting capital into the biggest state-owned lenders for the second time in six months, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. Seeking to sustain the flow of credit into the slumping economy, the treasury is considering buying bonds that will be issued mostly by TC Ziraat Bankasi AS and Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are internal. The blueprint is likely to be announced by Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak on Wednesday.

Debenhams Plc, the 241-year-old U.K. department-store chain that anchors many of the country’s troubled shopping streets, was taken over by lenders after rebuffing a last-minute offer from billionaire Mike Ashley. The retailer entered a form of U.K. insolvency proceedings, handing creditors control and prompting the tycoon to call for the reversal of a process he described as a “national scandal.” Stores employing about 26,000 people will continue to operate as normal, but shareholders’ stakes are now worthless, Bloomberg News reported.

An Italian government scheme to reimburse shareholders of failed lenders damages the credibility of European Union rules on bank rescues, a leading EU lawmaker said on Tuesday, urging Brussels to block the plan, Reuters reported. The government agreed a plan on Monday with investors’ associations to use taxpayers’ money to compensate the shareholders and bondholders of six small banks that went bust over the last four years.

A German court on Tuesday approved an application for insolvency from wind turbine manufacturer Senvion, although the company said it was also continuing to look at new funding options and various potential investors had shown interest, Reuters reported. The Hamburg-based company, which has more than a billion euros of debt, said it had applied for preliminary self-administration proceedings because refinancing discussions with lenders had not yet been successful. Shares in Senvion were down 40.5 percent at 1519 GMT, having fallen as much as 55 percent earlier in the day.

A new week opens in Europe with yet another warning sign over the health of the German economy, with new data showing imports and exports fell in February amid a fraught global trading environment, the Financial Times reported. Exports fell 1.3 per cent month on month to €108.8bn, according to the Federal Statistics Office, while imports dropped 1.6 per cent to €90.9bn. The declines were sharper than expected: a Reuters poll of economists had forecast falls of 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent.