Headlines

France is spending nearly 1 million euros a day on the heightened security, part of a renewed surge in European military spending as governments declare terrorism a permanent risk, the International New York Times reported. Europe’s current approach to fighting terrorism, after two deadly assaults carried out by Islamic militants in Paris last year, represents a shift from the austerity mantra that has dominated the region since the debt crisis in 2010.

I refer, of course, to the 2007 takeover of Stelco, just one of a spree of foreign takeovers that substantially contributed to a diminishment of Ontario’s profile on the world economic stage, the Toronto Star reported. (Think Falconbridge, Inco, Rio Algom.) At the height of the foreign takeover mania, the federal government of the day offered repeated assurances that the Investment Canada Act provided all the protections necessary to ensure such transactions would be of “net benefit” to Canada. In remaking Stelco into U.S.

Nigeria has asked the World Bank and African Development Bank for $3.5bn in emergency loans to fill a growing gap in its budget in the latest sign of the economic damage being wrought on oil-rich nations by tumbling crude prices, the Financial Times reported. The request from the eight-month-old government of President Muhammadu Buhari is intended to help fund a $15bn state deficit, which has been deepened by a hefty increase in public spending as the west African country attempts to stimulate a slowing economy.

A Brazilian bankruptcy court upheld a restructuring plan for embattled engineering conglomerate Grupo OAS, paving the way for a slew of asset sales aimed at helping pay over 8 billion reais ($2 billion) in liabilities. In a Thursday statement, the São Paulo-based group said that bankruptcy judge Daniel Carnio Costa gave his approval to the plan, which had previously been voted by an assembly of creditors in December. Under the plan, creditors will take an 80 percent loss on their debt and accept repayment for as many as 25 years.

One of the Middle East's longest-running debt disputes edged closer to being resolved on Thursday when Saudi Arabian family conglomerate Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers (AHAB) presented a revised restructuring plan. AHAB has around 22.5 billion riyals ($6 billion) of claims against it after the hospitality, food and real estate group collapsed in 2009 along with Saad Group, a separate Saudi business empire led by Maan al-Sanea. Since then, the two groups have conducted a high-profile battle in the courts over who was to blame.

An archaic part of China’s banking system meant to provide short-term funding to companies is coming under renewed scrutiny after at least two cases of fraud were uncovered recently, Bloomberg News reported. An alleged fraud of almost 1 billion yuan ($152 million) was discovered late last year at China Citic Bank Corp., where an employee colluded to fake documentation that companies typically use to get quick funds, people familiar with the matter said Thursday. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.

EU member states must move towards a “level-playing field” in terms of corporate tax, the EU’s economics chief warned yesterday as he criticised the “avoidance-friendly regimes” in place in some member states, the Irish Times reported. “Some [member states] have avoidance-friendly regimes. This cannot go on any more,” commissioner for economic and financial affairs Pierre Moscovici said, as he announced details of the European Commission’s new anti-tax avoidance package yesterday in Brussels.

Debt restructuring firms are poised to pull in record amounts of business in Brazil this year as the country's worst recession in decades and a corruption probe that has cast a shadow over dozens of companies leads to a surge in defaults, Reuters reported in an insight. While a slump in prices is squeezing commodities producers - from sugar mills to oil producers and miners - the "Operation Car Wash" investigation into political kickbacks at state oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is also hitting many of its suppliers.

Deutsche Bank, confirming that it would post a record loss for 2015, said on Thursday that members of its management board would not receive bonuses for the year and that shareholders should not expect a dividend until 2017 at the earliest, the International New York Times reported. The giant German bank reported a loss of 6.8 billion euros, or $7.4 billion, in 2015, as it set aside money to cover lawsuits and official investigations. It also suffered a decline in revenue in its investment banking unit.

China is ramping up efforts to halt a flood of money leaving the country in response to an economic slowdown, moves that risk undermining Beijing’s ambition to elevate the yuan’s profile on the world stage, The Wall Street Journal reported. Its latest steps involve curbing the ability of foreign companies in China to repatriate earnings, shrinking the pool of Chinese yuan available for banks in Hong Kong to make loans, and banning yuan-based funds for overseas investments, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.