Headlines

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA said the European Central Bank rejected its request to extend a capital increase into January over concerns that the Italian lender’s liquidity and capital ratios may deteriorate, posing a risk to its survival, Bloomberg reported. The ECB also said moving the deadline to Jan. 20 wouldn’t guarantee a more favorable market that might prompt banks to underwrite the share sale, Siena-based Monte Paschi bank said in a statement on Tuesday. The deadline for the 5 billion-euro ($5.3 billion) capital boost remains Dec. 31.

The number of people in work in the U.K. fell for the first time in more than a year in the three months through October, data showed Wednesday, signaling that the labor market may be softening and adding to signs of economic weakness emerging in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, The Wall Street Journal reported. Deteriorating economic conditions would spell trouble for the ruling Conservatives as they prepare to extricate the U.K. from the European Union, with formal divorce proceedings due to begin early next year.

All 132 stores in the Payless Shoes network will close by February 2017, after administrators for the retail chain were unable to find a buyer for the business as a whole, SmartCompany.com.au reported. Administrators from Ferrier Hodgson said on Wednesday afternoon approximately 730 employees will be affected by the closures, although some employee contracts may be transferred to interested parties throughout the closure process. The administrators said they will now work with “interested parties and landlords” to transfer or close the Payless Shoes stores.

Canadians are walking a tightrope between bulking up on their savings but also on their debts, The Globe and Mail reported. The key measure of consumer debt burden touched a new high in the third quarter. The ratio of debt to disposable income rose to 166.9 per cent from a revised 166.4 per cent in the second quarter, according to Statistics Canada’s national balance sheet report released on Wednesday. The government agency said this amounted to households owing $1.67 in debt for every dollar of disposable income at the end of the third quarter.

Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday approved a measure capping public spending, delivering a victory to embattled President Michel Temer, who is struggling to close a massive budget deficit and revive the nation’s moribund economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. In an unusually rapid session with little discussion, lawmakers voted 53 to 16 to approve a constitutional amendment limiting the nation’s annual spending growth to the previous year’s inflation rate.

The State is to receive a €280 million payout from the IBRC liquidators in the next fortnight, as they make their first payout to the unsecured creditors of the former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, the Irish Times reported. The joint special liquidators of IBRC, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG announced on Tuesday that most unsecured creditors are to receive 25 per cent of what they are owed in an interim dividend.

Spain has won praise from the International Monetary Fund for its “impressive” economic recovery, in a report that offered strong backing for the political measures taken by prime minister Mariano Rajoy at the height of the recent crisis. “The Spanish economy has continued its impressive recovery and strong job creation. Earlier reforms and confidence-enhancing measures have paid off, and combined with external tailwinds and fiscal loosening fuelled the strong economic rebound of the past two years,” the IMF said in its annual country assessment on Tuesday.

The market for non-preferred senior bank debt got off to a flying start on Tuesday as investors ploughed more than 5bn of orders into Credit Agricole's inaugural trade in the format, Reuters reported. One of 2016's most eagerly awaited deals in the European financials market, the trade is seen as the key to unlocking a wave of new loss absorbing senior debt to be issued by banks across Europe as they square up to new regulations. French peer Societe Generale has already planted a flag in the sand for its own inaugural transaction, announcing a mandate late on Tuesday morning.

Venezuelans desperately rushed to banks Tuesday to dump cash after the government announced it is eliminating the largest circulating bank note to combat contraband in a country whipsawed by the world’s deepest recession and highest inflation, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the financial district of downtown Caracas, National Guard troops carrying assault rifles stood outside banks as crowds of people lined up to deposit stacks of 100-bolivar bills, which President Nicolás Maduro said Monday would become void on Wednesday night.

Online review platform Yelp has taken a €65.4 million writedown on its Irish assets following the company’s recent decision to shut most of its international operations, the Irish Times reported. The company, whose main Irish unit recorded turnover of €32.6 million last year, incurred the impairment charge after it decided to wind down its sales and marketing activities outside of North America. Yelp came in for criticism for the manner in which it announced plans to close the operations, most of which are based in Ireland.