Headlines

The Bank of England faces a monetary policy dilemma as it prepares to mark 20 years of independence this week, the Financial Times reported. Should it respond to the unwelcome return of inflation with higher interest rates? Or should it worry about the latest evidence of a slowdown, by maintaining rates at the rock bottom 0.25 per cent rate? As the central bank prepares for its May interest-rate decision alongside the publication of quarterly forecasts, the signals from the Monetary Policy Committee are becoming increasingly hawkish.

Italians are watching their flag carrier Alitalia go into yet another financial tailspin, and a growing number of them believe it would be better for the country if it crashed. Outraged at repeated state bailouts that have cost taxpayers more than 7 billion euros (5.88 billion pounds) over a decade, many Italians are taking to social media to urge the government to resist the political temptation to rush to its rescue again, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "In electoral terms, Alitalia is worth nothing.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, reported its strongest quarterly profit growth in two years as soured credit and lending margins stabilized amid an uptick in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Net income rose 1.4 percent to 75.79 billion yuan ($11 billion) in the three months ended March 31 from 74.76 billion yuan a year earlier, the Beijing-based lender said in an exchange filing on Friday. Rival lender Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. separately reported a 1.9 percent profit increase for the period.

After a dismal fourth quarter, it seems that Europe’s investment banks have got some of their swagger back, the Financial Times reported. Switzerland’s UBS grew investment bank profits by more than 50 per cent in the first quarter, even though it is hard to imagine a recovery less well-suited to the Swiss bank which is short on the US exposure and the markets businesses that have driven the strong results of peers. Credit Suisse reported a 133 per cent rise in credit revenues in the first quarter, on a US dollar basis, and said it had led 19 IPOs “more, w

A closely watched measure of inflation in the eurozone has risen more sharply than expected, adding to the pressure on Mario Draghi to succumb to German-led calls to abandon the European Central Bank’s aggressive monetary easing, the Financial Times reported. The European Commission’s statistics bureau on Friday reported that the annual rate of core inflation had shot up from 0.7 per cent in March to 1.2 per cent this month.

Air Berlin reported a record net loss of 782 million euros (654.10 million pounds) in 2016 as well as a widening loss in the first quarter of 2017, and said it was seeking new partners as it battles to revive its fortunes, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Air Berlin, 29 percent owned by Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, is already undergoing a restructuring that will see its fleet halve to about 75 aircraft and a focus on network flights rather than the tourist flights to Spain for which it became famous.

British Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to protect workers against irresponsible practices over pensions on Sunday, promising new regulations on how schemes are handled during corporate takeovers. May's Conservative party will give regulators power to examine takeover proposals that threaten the solvency of a company pension scheme, and the regulator could be empowered to block takeovers if it is not satisfied with the arrangements, Reuters reported. May set out the policy ahead of an election June 8.

The Brazilian government will introduce legislation granting it the power to intervene when telecom operators under bankruptcy protection, the head of telecoms regulator Anatel said on Thursday. Juarez Quadros said the decision was meant to avoid any judicial questioning of future interventions, but did not say when the government planned to submit the legislation, Reuters reported. Since March, the government has promised to enact a decree to allow authorities to intervene in debt-laden OI SA .

Trading in Takata Corp shares was suspended on Thursday after a report that the Japanese airbag maker at the heart of the car industry's biggest-ever recall is considering a bankruptcy plan that will create a new company and ringfence its liabilities, Reuters reported. The Nikkei business daily reported Chinese-owned car parts maker Key Safety Systems (KSS), the company's preferred bidder, would sponsor the turnaround plan by injecting 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) and helping create a new operating company.

Mozambique’s parliament ratified a law that provides state guarantees for previously hidden loans of two state-owned companies that sparked a debt crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries, Bloomberg News reported. Lawmakers from the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique approved the state accounts for 2015, which included guarantees for loans worth $1.12 billion that ProIndicus and Mozambique Asset Management took out in the prior two years. Opposition members left the legislature in protest when the vote was taken late Wednesday.