Headlines

Ryanair is one step closer to taking over Cyprus Airways after getting through to the second round of bidding for the ailing flag carrier at the weekend, the Irish Times reported. The Irish airline was one of 15 which submitted proposals to the Cypriot government in September to acquire and turn around Cyprus Airways, which in 2012 needed a €73 million state bailout after losing €56 million. According to incoming finance chief Neil Sorahan, Ryanair was informally told on Friday that it was on a shortlist, meaning it is through to the second round of the process.

HSBC’s profits fell short of expectations in the third quarter after the bank set aside $1.8 billion for misconduct settlements and compensation for customers, including a potential fine for rigging currency markets, the Irish Times reported. The provision and a jump in HSBC’s everyday compliance costs show the impact of regulators’ increasing efforts to clamp down on bad behaviour in the global banking industry that contributed to the financial crisis.

Iron-ore junior Pluton Resources is battling receivership after junior Chinese creditor Rizhao Port Group appointed receivers and managers, prompting fellow-listed Watpac to suspend an existing mining services contract at the Cockatoo Island project, Mining Weekly reported. Pluto told shareholders on Monday that the receivers and its solicitors had refused the company’s requests for details of the appointment.

Finnair Group reported a net profit of €16.6 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, down 38.3% from €27 million for the same period last year, Air Transport World reported. Operating profit was down 40.7% for the period, to €23.6 million from €39.8 million in the year-ago period. The airline group attributed the disappointing performance to the strengthening of the euro against several revenue currencies, the ongoing weakness of the Finnish and eurozone economies, tumbling unit revenues, and declining cargo revenues.

Prospective LNG exporter AltaGas Ltd. of Calgary said Monday it plans to double its asset base from $7.5 billion to $15 billion by 2019. At an investor day webcast from Toronto, executives said AltaGas plans to expand its utility and power operations but most of the growth will be in its ability to handle and export western Canadian natural gas from prolific shale plays in northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta.

Argentina's debt default spread to its Par bonds on Friday after the country failed to complete an interest payment, raising the risk that creditors could demand that the country's cash-strapped government immediately repay all of its debt. Argentina deposited a $161 million payment with a newly appointed local trustee last month to try to circumvent U.S. court orders for it to settle with "holdout" investors. The holdouts are suing to get full repayment of bonds from a 2002 default before holders that accepted the terms of a debt restructuring get paid by the government.

Irish banks are preventing small businesses from growing “beyond a certain size” because they only offer them short-term loans, according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the Irish Times reported. Speaking yesterday at the launch of the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), which will make up to €5 billion in cheap, longer-term loans available to small and medium-sized businesses over five years, the Minister pointed out these enterprises were a very important part of the economy. “But once they reach a certain size they do not continue to grow,” he said.

The European senior bank debt market is yet to fully factor in the risk of bail-in despite an approaching deadline that will see some countries introduce burden sharing measures into local laws as early as 2015. The Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) adopted by the European Parliament in April requires that at least 8% of a bank's total liabilities must be bailed in before public funds can be tapped. That will ensure that unsecured bondholders, rather than taxpayers, foot the bill for failing banks.

French public passenger transport group Transdev, owned by Veolia and state bank CDC, is to call in loans to its France-Corsica ferry operator unit SNCM next week, it said on Friday, pushing the unit into filing for court protection from insolvency, Reuters reported. Transdev's owners have said court protection from creditors is the only way to shield the loss-making ferry operator from two separate European Union state aid repayment claims totalling 440 million euros.

Three former managers blamed for the crisis that has befallen the world’s oldest bank, and devastated the community whose economy depended on it, were sentenced on Friday to jail time and banned from public office for five years, the International New York Times reported. The executives of the bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, were accused of hiding a convoluted derivatives contract that helped it conceal its losses.