Headlines

Nigeria's government is taking over the country's biggest airline, Arik Air, to "instill sanity" and prevent "a major catastrophe" in the aviation industry of Africa's most populous nation, the receivership corporation said Thursday, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria said the heavily indebted airline has not paid workers for months and has had aircraft seized for non-payment of leases.

An investigation into the collapse of BHS could take as long as two years to determine whether any of the department-store chain’s former directors should be disqualified, the head of the Insolvency Service has said, while expressing “confidence” that the inquiry could be concluded “significantly” earlier, the Financial Times reported. The probe into BHS is consuming as much as one-tenth of the regulator’s resources, officials have previously disclosed.

Blackstone tabled a debt restructuring plan for German outdoor brand Jack Wolfskin before a lender call on Wednesday, sources close to the situation said, as the company's earnings remain under pressure. Under the terms of Blackstone’s proposal €150m of Jack Wolfskin's circa €300m (255 million pound) debt will be reinstated – although it is unclear on what terms - leaving lenders to take a haircut of around 50%, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Britain's energy market regulator Ofgem will review the way it awards supply licences and financial requirements on energy suppliers later this year, it said, following calls for firms to undergo stricter financial stress tests, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. In a speech on Thursday, Ofgem Chief Executive Dermot Nolan said there had been a lot of interest in the energy sector's financial stability due to the increasing number of suppliers, many of which are very small.

India's central bank deputy governor on Wednesday joined the debate over creating a so-called "bad bank" to handle record sour assets in the nation's banks, saying it could help if "designed properly". Banks in India had record stressed loans of $133 billion, or 12.34 percent of their total loans, as of last September, Reuters reported. About two dozen state-owned lenders, which own nearly 70 percent of India's banking assets, have an even higher stressed-loan ratio of 15.88 percent, according to data compiled by India's central bank. In its economic survey released on Jan.

British insurer RSA has strengthened its capital base above its target range with a deal to dispose of a book of mainly asbestos-related insurance policies, the firm's chief financial officer said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. RSA, best known in Britain for its More Than insurance brand, signed a deal to dispose of 834 million pounds ($1.04 billion) of legacy insurance liabilities - policies that are closed to new customers - through a reinsurance deal with Enstar Group, the firms said late on Tuesday.

Investors in cash-strapped Greece appear to be losing faith in a pledge from European officials five years ago that the country's default would be a one-off, Reuters reported. It was partly the strength of that promise that allowed Greece to make one of the fastest returns to markets of any defaulted sovereign, taking money from private investors in 2014 just two years after it had imposed hefty writedowns.

Greece pushed back against the International Monetary Fund’s view that the government’s economic reforms are heading off track, Bloomberg News reported. In official responses, published with an IMF report on Greece late Tuesday, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said the fund’s assessment was not based on recent evidence, while Bank of Greece governor Yannis Stournaras said it downplayed progress on the financial sector and was unduly pessimistic.

AP Moller-Maersk on Wednesday unveiled one of the biggest losses in Danish corporate history as the conglomerate suffered from a weak container shipping industry and massive writedowns on its oil businesses last year, the Financial Times reported. Shares in Maersk fell as much as 7 per cent on Wednesday as it reported only its second annual loss in seven decades and halved its dividend to try to protect its investment grade credit rating.

Europe’s leading central bankers are at loggerheads over one of the biggest economic judgments facing the continent: does a disorderly Brexit pose a financial stability risk? Mark Carney, Bank of England governor, fears a messy and severe Brexit could be a “Jenga” moment that leads to the collapse of the legal architecture the underpins financial flows, hurting the City of London’s European customers even more than the UK itself, the Financial Times reported. Mario Draghi, meanwhile, is largely unfazed.