Headlines

Growth in China’s broad money supply slipped to a fresh record low, signaling authorities aren’t letting up in their drive to curb excess borrowing and safeguard the financial system, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities pushing to cut excess leverage have squeezed the massive shadow bank sector, which shrank for the first time in nine months. Yet with aggregate financing remaining robust and bond issuance rebounding, the central bank is still providing ample support for businesses to avoid derailing growth ahead of a key Communist Party congress this fall.

Air Berlin Plc filed for insolvency after leading shareholder Etihad Airways PJSC withdrew its financial support, marking the second failure of a major European airline in four months after the Persian Gulf carrier pulled the plug on funding Italy’s Alitalia SpA in May, Bloomberg News reported. While Air Berlin, which has 8,600 staff, will continue flying with the help of a government loan likely to last it until mid-November, Tuesday’s filing puts German jobs at risk weeks before German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands for re-election.

Leading central banks now own a fifth of their governments’ total debt, a sign of the scale of the challenge they will face in unwinding unprecedented stimulus measures deployed over the past decade, the Financial Times reported. Since the financial crisis emerged, the world’s biggest central banks have carried out large-scale purchases of bonds and other securities in a bid to boost the global economy by driving down borrowing costs for households and businesses.

The future of Learndirect, the UK’s largest provider of adult learning and apprenticeships, looks increasingly bleak after the Department for Education said on Tuesday that it would cut its funding to the private-equity owned company, the Financial Times reported. The decision by the DfE, a major source of Learndirect’s income, follows a damning report about the company’s performance by Ofsted, the education regulator, which the Financial Times and FE Week revealed on Monday.

Finland’s economy suffered its worst performance in five years in the second quarter of the year, falling into contraction for the first time since the depth of its woes back in 2012. A measure of adjusted year on year GDP fell 0.5 per cent in the three months to June, down from growth of 2.5 per cent at the start of the year, according to Statistics Finland. Outside the southern European member states, Finland has been one of the worst performing economies in the single currency area over the last decade.

China had unexpected buoyancy in its economy to thank for an easing off in corporate defaults in the first half, Bloomberg News reported. But as growth shows signs of pulling back, the question is: will it last? Despite alarm over the risks posed by China’s daunting debt pile ticking up in the first six months of the year, the country actually saw a drop in corporate distress, with 0.27 percent of issuers defaulting, versus 0.55 percent in all of 2016, according to China Lianhe Credit Rating Co. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., too, saw Chinese company leverage drop in the first half.

The UK’s largest adult training and apprenticeships provider is at risk of collapse following a damning report by Ofsted, the education regulator, that the company tried to suppress, the Financial Times reported. Learndirect, which currently has 73,000 people on training courses and apprenticeships, was given Ofsted’s lowest grade possible after an inspection in March.

With its forbidding chimneys belching smoke into the Mediterranean air, the giant Taranto steelworks on the coastline of southern Italy makes an unprepossessing poster image for the long-awaited consolidation of Europe’s steel sector, the Financial Times reported. As the largest mill in Europe capable of making the metal, it should have benefited from the economies of scale that give an advantage in heavy manufacturing.

Portugal’s economic growth hit the brakes in the second quarter, in a surprise slowdown for one of the eurozone’s standout economies in recent months, the Financial Times reported. Gross domestic product expanded 0.2 per cent in the three months to June, down from 1 per cent at the start of the year and below a forecast of 0.6 per cent. It means year on year growth held steady at 2.8 per cent – still the best rate in a decade, according to stats office INE.

Nigeria's Zenith Bank has made a provision on 30 percent of its loan to 9mobile, the country's fourth largest telecoms group formerly known as Etisalat Nigeria, the bank's chief executive said on Monday. "We have taken about 30 percent ... as a provision which we believe is very prudent as the company is undergoing restructuring ... to prepare for a new investor," CEO Peter Amangbo told a conference call.