Headlines

Some of Greece’s biggest banks suffered steep share price falls on Wednesday as investors worried they may not have enough capital to meet fresh targets on reducing their large portfolios of bad debts, the Financial Times reported. Shares in Piraeus Bank, the country’s largest lender by assets, dropped more than 20 per cent, cutting its market capitalisation to less than €600m. The bank responded by trying to reassure investors that its plan to boost capital by issuing €500m of subordinated bonds was still on track.

There is "no chance" of Italy defaulting on its debts and the country is very different from Greece, Italy's minister for European affairs was quoted on Wednesday as telling EU lawmakers. Paolo Savona was speaking after presenting a document to Italian lawmakers in the European Parliament in which he proposes a review of the EU's monetary and fiscal policy, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "I think there is no chance that Italy will default on its public debt," Savona said, according to a person who attended the meeting.

The 19-country eurozone economy lost momentum in September despite a resilient performance by the services sector in Italy, according to a closely watched survey released Wednesday, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Financial information firm IHS Markit said its composite purchasing managers' index, a key measure of business activity in services and manufacturing, slipped to 54.1 points in September from 54.5 the previous month.

India’s shock seizure of a troubled shadow bank on Monday means contagion’s off the table. It doesn’t mean the saga’s over, Bloomberg News reported. That’s the verdict of strategists and investors after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government took control of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., promising to end the group’s string of defaults. But the giant IL&FS group still owns long-term infrastructure financed with short-term funding, and its new board will need to make progress selling assets to pare $12.6 billion of debt.

Who bought 10.9 billion liras ($1.8 billion) of Turkish state banks’ subordinated debt in hurried sales last week? That’s the question that’s been dominating talk among local economists and investors, with speculation focusing on whether assets from the nation’s unemployment fund were deployed to boost the lenders’ capital buffers. The banks haven’t provided many details, saying the sales were private, Bloomberg News reported. State-controlled Turkiye Vakiflar Bankasi TAO sold 4.99 billion liras of Tier-1 notes with a fixed-rate coupon payment on a semi-annual basis.

The latest collision between Italy’s markets and politics is beginning to fuel concern that shock waves could spread to elsewhere in Europe. As Italian bond yields touched a four-year high, the euro extended losses and the region’s equities slumped, while haven assets such as German bunds and the Swiss franc rallied, Bloomberg News reported. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The Moldovan government says loss-making national airline Air Moldova has been sold to a Romanian group for 1.2 billion Moldovan lei ($71 million). The Public Property Agency said Tuesday that Civil Aviation Group paid 50 million lei ($2.96 million) to Moldova's state budget, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. The remaining money from the purchase will go toward covering debts that were sold to prevent the airline's bankruptcy. Air Moldova was founded in 1983 and has flights to 33 destinations.

French carmaker PSA Group is open to new industry tie-ups and is attracting attention from competitors after its lightning turnaround and swift progress in restructuring recently acquired Opel, Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said. The maker of Peugeot cars, which came close to bankruptcy in 2013-14, has rebounded under Tavares to record levels of profitability, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Greece wants to repay loans owed to its lenders from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund before they are due in a bid to cut its debt servicing costs, its finance minister said on Tuesday. Greece, whose public debt amounts to 180 percent of its gross domestic product, has received loans totalling about 280 billion euros under three international bailouts since 2010, Reuters reported. The ECB holds about 12 billion euros worth of Greek debt with an average maturity of four years and the IMF about 10 billion euros with an average maturity of three years.

South African construction firm Group Five will cut more jobs as it seeks to trim loss-making divisions, it said on Tuesday, highlighting an industry-wide slump in its home market that has left many companies fighting for survival, Reuters reported. South African construction companies have been hit hard in recent years as stagnant economic growth has hobbled public infrastructure spending, prompting some of them to file business rescues, similar to chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.