Headlines

Investors in European banks have been engaged in a long love affair with the lenders of the Nordic region, the Financial Times reported. Unhurt by the financial crisis a decade ago, these banks have generated some of the strongest profitability and have enjoyed some of the highest valuations across the sector. Can it last? Already over the past 12 months the shine has come off some of these institutions. Several have even had declines in their share prices, underperforming the 2 per cent fall in the Euro Stoxx banks index.

Economic growth figures on Friday came in weaker than expected, lowering the pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates in May, the Financial Times reported. The Office for National Statistics said the slowdown was not because of poor weather in February and March but was due to “pockets of weakness more broadly across the economy”. Construction suffered the most during the quarter, down by 3.3 per cent compared with the previous three months. However, the bulk of the decline in building activity was in January before the snows hit.

Etihad Airways PJSC intends to remain a major global carrier as it works on re-sizing its global business following record losses, according to new Chief Executive Officer Tony Douglas. The Persian Gulf company, which has built up a vast inter-continental route network and spent billions of dollars on plane purchases, has no intention of becoming a “boutique” operator and still aspires to being an “airline of choice,” Douglas said Monday in Abu Dhabi, where Etihad is based.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has said that there is “a real risk” that no agreement will be reached with the UK in talks on its withdrawal from the political bloc, the Irish Times reported. Speaking on a visit to the Border area, Mr Barnier said that the EU was preparing for all options, including the possibility that Brussels and London cannot reach a deal on the UK’s departure in March 2019. Negotiations have become bogged down over how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Britain’s Interserve Plc reported a deeper annual pretax loss on Monday, sending its shares 20 percent lower, as CEO Debbie White leads a turnaround of the construction and support services company, Reuters reported. Shareholders on Friday approved a funding plan agreed with creditors in March after the company had warned it might breach covenants. On Monday, White, who took over as CEO in September, gave a blunt assessment of the company’s “inefficient operating model”.

Lenders to Essar Steel Ltd. have decided to assess bids submitted by Numetal Mauritius and ArcelorMittal India on their individual merit, Bloomberg News reported. The committee of creditors will not challenge an order passed by the National Company Law Tribunal last week, directing them to review bids submitted by the two companies. The CoC decision was taken at the end of deliberations that spanned over two days as lenders assessed the tribunal’s order, three people in the know told BloombergQuint on the condition of anonymity.

China is setting up a special court in Shanghai to deal with the complex financial cases that are rising apace with the deepening of the country’s financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Shanghai Financial Court is expected to start operations by the end of August after Chinese lawmakers on Friday gave their approval. The court will merge special financial tribunals in the current Shanghai court system that have handled a spiraling number of finance-related civil cases—179,000 last year, after rising an average of 51% each year since 2013—officials said.

As the European Union braces for political battles over its post-Brexit budget, a farm in the poorest member country shows what’s at stake. AJD Agro Ltd., a Bulgarian grain producer and exporter, owes its existence to European agricultural aid, Bloomberg News reported. That support now faces the threat of cuts as the EU seeks to fill a Brexit-induced budget hole and ramp up spending on security in a much-anticipated proposal due on May 2. The company was losing money until the first EU payment arrived in 2008, a year after Bulgaria joined the bloc.

Russian metals giant Rusal will overhaul its board and management in hopes of persuading the United States to lift sanctions but it may be forced to halt aluminium exports for good if the plan fails, sources close to the company said. Washington this month imposed sanctions on billionaire Oleg Deripaska and several companies in which he is a large shareholder, including Rusal, in response to what the United States called Russia’s “malign activities,” Reuters reported.

A strengthening dollar pushed Argentina to raise its policy interest rate 3 percentage points on Friday to 30.25 per cent, underscoring the mounting pressure on emerging market currencies. The rate rise ended a week in which Argentina’s central bank spent about $3bn to support the currency, which has lost more than a quarter of its dollar value over the past year, the Financial Times reported.