Headlines

Codere SA reached an agreement with creditors to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) of debt, allowing the Spanish gaming company to avoid entering insolvency proceedings, Bloomberg News reported. The company will use the U.K. courts and seek a scheme-of-arrangement to implement the deal, which includes issuing 675 million euros of new bonds and 253 million euros of new loans, Codere said in a statement. Jose Antonio Martinez Sampedro, the current chairman and chief executive officer, will continue performing his executive role in the group, according to the statement.

Britain's budget deficit widened in August compared with a year earlier, a sign the nation's economic recovery has yet to be felt in its public finances, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Office for National Statistics said Tuesday the U.K.'s budget deficit widened to £11.6 billion ($18.95 billion) in August from £11 billion a year earlier, as higher spending, interest payments and investment offset only a small pickup in tax receipts. The U.K. economy is expected to expand 3.1% in 2014, according to a range of independent forecasts compiled by the U.K.

Shares in Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International fell 10 per cent after the western lender with the greatest exposure to Russia and Ukraine warned that the conflict in the region would drag it to a full-year loss, the Financial Times reported. The Vienna-based lender said in a statement released late on Monday that it would increase its provisions for bad loans this year by 15 per cent to 30 per cent, mostly relating to its operations in Ukraine.

Forty-one public companies at risk of insolvency in Angola are being evaluated by the Economy Ministry and some may be terminated to avoid continued waste of public resources, the secretary of State of Economy said in Luanda., Macauhub reported. Laura Alcântara Monteiro, who spoke at the end of the meeting of the Committee for the Real Economy of the Council of Ministers, said the extinction of some of these units should be one of the solutions but that analysis work was still underway and should be completed in the coming weeks.

The official in charge of Sean Dunne’s bankruptcy has launched High Court proceedings aimed at setting aside the bankrupt businessman’s transfer of an interest in a €17-€18 million South African hotel to his wife Gayle, the Irish Times reported. The court heard today that Chris Lehane, the official assignee administering Mr Dunne’s bankruptcy, wants to set aside 2005 and 2008 transactions between the Dunnes in respect of the Lagoon Beach Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa.

China’s four biggest banks may ease mortgage lending, the latest in a series of policy steps aimed at supporting the country’s sliding property market, the 21st Century Business Herald reported yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. Criteria for loans to first-home buyers may be eased and people who have paid outstanding mortgages may be considered eligible for first-home status, the Guangzhou-based newspaper said, citing unidentified people at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (601398) and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.

Air France pilots rejected a proposal from management on Monday and vowed to extend indefinitely a strike that has grounded tens of thousands of passengers over the last week and threatens to wipe out tens of millions of dollars in revenue, the International New York Times reported.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, gave a more pessimistic view of the eurozone economy on Monday than he did just a few weeks ago, in a statement that could encourage speculation that a stronger stimulus plan is in the works, the International New York Times reported. “The economic recovery in the euro area is losing momentum,” Mr. Draghi said in an appearance before a committeeof the European Parliament in Brussels. That was a blunter and glummer view than he gave at a news conference on Sept.

Argentina’s battle with holdout creditors is taking on ever-broader dimensions as Cristina Fernández, the president, appeals for support from the UN this week after meeting billionaire George Soros and Pope Francis, the Financial Times reported. In New York, Ms Fernández hopes to recruit Mr Soros in her fight against the holdouts. His Quantum hedge fund holds a 3.5 per cent, or $450m stake, in YPF, the national oil company that would benefit from renewed access to international credit.

European economies need to quickly embrace a fiscal-stimulus plan because the region is "perilously close" to deflation, Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver said Sunday, warning such a turn could have negative consequences for a global economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. "What we do not want, of course, is to see Europe enter into a deflationary spiral," said Mr.