Headlines

U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela last week put limits on new debt from the country. But the Treasury Department’s move is having broader consequences in the bond market, where brokers taking a cautious stance are limiting trades in existing notes. Depository Trust Company, a custodian for more than $35 trillion of securities, temporarily put a block on services for Venezuelan bond trades, and some dealers have also stopped buying and selling the debt.

The number of employed Italians has risen above 23m for the first time since 2008, boosting hopes that the recovery in the eurozone’s third-largest economy is gathering pace, the Financial Times reported. Istat, Italy’s statistical agency, said on Thursday that employment had increased in July by 59,000 compared with the previous month. Combined with upward revisions to June data, this lifted employment to the same level it was at in the early stages of the financial crisis. The data add to evidence that Italy is latching on to the eurozone recovery.

Inflation in the eurozone rose faster than expected in August, but underlying measures that exclude volatile energy prices remained stagnant, adding to the headaches facing the European Central Bank ahead of its monetary policy meeting next week, the Financial Times reported. Prices rose 1.5 per cent year on year, up from 1.3 per cent in the year to July and higher than consensus forecasts of 1.4 per cent. However, energy was by far the largest driver of the increase, with energy prices rising 4 per cent year on year. The next largest increase was in services, at just 1.6 per cent.

Ryanair will not bid for any assets of insolvent German airline Air Berlin, its Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Wednesday, describing the process as “a stitch-up”. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection this month after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses. O’Leary, the head of the Irish budget airline, has complained that the insolvency process was designed to help strengthen leading German airline Lufthansa, Reuters reported.

Nigeria’s Access Bank said on Wednesday it had booked a 4 billion naira ($13 million) impairment on its loan to troubled telecoms firm 9mobile, formerly known as Etisalat Nigeria. Access Chief Executive Herbert Wigwe said the bank had a direct exposure of 11 billion naira to 9mobile, as well as an exposure of 35-39 billion naira to the telecoms firm’s suppliers, Reuters reported. Wigwe told an analysts’ call that Access hoped to recover the debt once 9mobile was sold to new investors.

Disgruntled investors have filed 51 lawsuits against European Union regulators for shutting Spain’s Banco Popular, marking one of the largest legal challenges yet to the EU and a fresh attack on the bloc’s rules on bank rescues, Reuters reported. The deluge of cases, filed with the European Union’s General Court, are the first legal test of how the EU applies new bank rules aimed at forcing investors to bear the costs of rescuing a failing lender before taxpayer money is used.

The nationalization of Russia's biggest private bank sounds anachronistic: There's no global or regional financial crisis, and the latest World Bank report on the Russian economy described the country's financial sector as "largely stabilized," with about 10 percent non-performing loans, a lower level than in Portugal, Italy or Ireland, a Bloomberg View reported. But the fate of the Otkritie financial group is not really about traditional banking problems. It's about the state's oversized and still growing role in the Russian economy. One could tell Otkritie's story as a purely financial one.

The world’s riskiest credit continued its downward spiral after Fitch Ratings lowered Venezuela’s grade deeper into junk, saying additional U.S. sanctions increase the probability of non-payment. Fitch reduced the nation’s long-term foreign and local currency ratings to CC, just two notches from default, from CCC on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service also rank the country at speculative levels.

As any builder or keen DIYer will tell you, there is a right time — and a wrong time — to attempt certain jobs. Fixing the roof is best attempted when the sun is shining, as one frequent sporter of the high vis was wont to remind us. Concrete is best mixed and poured in cooler conditions, as this columnist’s predecessor can attest (who knew?). And it seems HSS Hire — equipment supplier of choice to the latter, if not the former — is being reminded of this truism as it attempts to fix its own business model, the Financial Times reported.

German airline Lufthansa aims to take on around a dozen of Air Berlin’s 17 long-haul aircraft and their transatlantic routes in a carve-up of the insolvent carrier, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection this month after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses, Reuters reported.