Headlines

The UK’s largest provider of adult training and apprenticeships will continue to receive public money despite a withering Ofsted report that found serious problems with the private-equity owned group’s services, the Financial Times reported. Learndirect, which was privatised in 2011 and sold to an arm of Lloyds Bank, will be able to run apprenticeships through a recently formed corporate entity after its main operating business was given Ofsted’s lowest grade possible after an inspection in March.

The European Central Bank's policymakers are still concerned that inflation in the 19-nation eurozone is too low despite an improving economy and seem worried about the strength of the shared euro currency, their last meeting shows. The account of the July 20 meeting, published Thursday, shows the rate-setters noted that market investors seemed overly aggressive in thinking the bank would wind down its stimulus program soon, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story.

India is taking a series of aggressive steps to reduce the mountain of bad debts weighing down its banks and threatening to derail the world’s fastest-growing large economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. India’s parliament last week passed a law empowering its central bank to force some of the country’s largest companies into bankruptcy proceedings. The move follows last year’s overhaul of the bankruptcy code, another attempt to make it faster for creditors to get their money back in a country notorious for drawn-out insolvency proceedings.

Air Berlin's chief executive blamed long delays in the opening of a new Berlin airport for the German airline's insolvency in an interview published by Germany's Die Zeit, Reuters reported. "Air Berlin is also a victim of the constant postponements of the new airport," the weekly newspaper on Wednesday quoted Thomas Winkelmann as saying. Winkelmann's comments came a day after Air Berlin, Germany's second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection after key shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses.

Investors bought insurance contracts that explicitly protect against bond losses imposed by governments or regulators as part of a bank rescue, Bloomberg News reported. But more than two months after junior notes were wiped out in Europe’s first forced sale of a failing lender under its new resolution regime, holders of credit-default swaps haven’t been compensated. Banco Popular Espanol SA subordinated bonds were written off in June, when the struggling Spanish lender was sold to Banco Santander SA for one euro by the European Union’s Single Resolution Board.

Brazil’s central bank chief is facing the tough reality that weaning the country’s largest businesses off of multi-billion dollar subsidies is easier said than done. Over the past fortnight, Ilan Goldfajn has lobbied dozens of lawmakers over legislation that would essentially eliminate below-market rates on long-term loans from state bank BNDES before the proposal expires on Sept. 7. In a sign of the importance the central bank places in the bill, no fewer than four directors attended its reading in a congressional committee hearing on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported.

Sears Canada Inc.’s top executive is preparing an offer to save the bankrupt company from liquidation, The Wall Street Journal reported. Executive Chairman Brandon Stranzl intends to submit an offer for Sears Canada that would preserve the company as a going concern, according to a Wednesday memorandum filed in its insolvency proceedings. The retailer filed for protection from creditors in June under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, Canada’s equivalent of chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The National Company Law Tribunal-appointed Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain on Wednesday met with the chief executive officer and senior officials of the Yamuna Expressway authority to discuss issues pertaining to insolvency proceedings against Jaypee Infratech, the Hindustan Times reported. The meeting took place at the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority’s (YEIDA) office in Greater Noida.

Despite national government statistics showing a sharp 15.4% drop in underlying corporate insolvencies in the second quarter of 2017, more East Midlands businesses are standing at the brink of insolvency than at any other time this year, TheBusinessDesk reported. This is according to new monthly research by the Midlands branch of restructuring and insolvency trade body R3 which shows that over one in four businesses in the region – 28 per cent – are now at higher than normal risk of becoming insolvent.

U.K. auto lenders are increasingly vulnerable to a drop in used-car prices after a surge in risky loans, according to a post published on the Bank of England’s staff blog Tuesday. It’s the latest central bank salvo in a raging debate over whether years of low interest rates have spurred a wave of loans that will lead to rising defaults, Bloomberg News reported. At issue are Personal Contract Purchases, under which drivers make a deposit and rent a new car instead of buying it.