Headlines

The Nuerburgring, the German race track known as Green Hell for its challenging Formula One course, was bought by an auto-parts maker two years after the former owner and operator filed for bankruptcy protection. The acquisition by Capricorn Group values the 379-hectare (937-acre) property at more than 100 million euros ($139 million), lawyers managing the insolvency of owner Nuerburgring GmbH said yesterday in a statement. That includes 25 million euros that the Dusseldorf-based buyer will spend to further develop the site.

The European Central Bank is poised to probe €3.7tn worth of assets from the biggest lenders in the eurozone as it begins a fresh phase of its asset quality review, the Financial Times reported. The Frankfurt-based regulator is now examining riskier assets across 128 eurozone banks totalling, on average, 58 per cent of their risk-weighted portfolios – above the minimum 50 per cent threshold at each lender the central bank had vowed to select.

A federal judge in Chicago froze the U.S. assets of the chief executive of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox as part of a customer lawsuit against the defunct bitcoin trading exchange, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, regulators took steps to gain greater control of the fledgling virtual currency and protect consumers from bitcoin scammers.

China's central bank is prepared to take its strongest action since 2012 to loosen monetary policy if economic growth slows further, by cutting the amount of cash that banks must keep as reserves, sources involved in internal policy discussions say, Reuters reported. A cut would be triggered if growth slips below 7.5 percent and towards 7.0 percent, they said, and would come on top of money market operations and currency intervention via state banks that traders say has already loosened monetary conditions.

The lack of competition in Ireland’s post-crash banking sector may be a key reason why firms are finding it so difficult to access credit, the Irish Times reported. New research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) suggests a direct link between bank market competition and access to finance by small- and medium-sized enterprises. The study – entitled Does Bank Market Power Affect SME Financing Constraints? – assessed the financial constraints faced by 118,000 SMEs in 20 European countries between 2005 and 2008.

Dubai’s global financial crisis-induced slump, followed by a less dramatic, but equally sharp, recovery make for a compelling story. The endless flow of positive news in the desert emirate culminated late last year in Dubai winning the hosting rights for World Expo 2020, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. But the smart people at Bank of America Merrill Lynch are a little more sober in their analysis of Dubai’s rebound. Afterall, there’s still some pretty significant financial hurdles for the city’s government-related entities to clear.

A liquidator has been appointed to the firm behind Irish Psychics Live, which was founded by former journalist Tom Higgins, the Irish Times reported. A document lodged with the Companies Office confirms that Eamon Leahy of Leahy & Company, Fairview, Dublin has been appointed as liquidator arising from a resolution of the members of Realm Communications Limited. The liquidation of the firm follows eight months after the company, which was behind what was Ireland’s most high profile and controversial premium phone line service, ceased trading.

German banks are to escape scrutiny of their residential mortgage portfolios in a sweeping review of lenders’ balance sheets by the European Central Bank, even as regulators express concerns over a property bubble in the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Banks in Germany including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank do not have to hand over details of loans made to homeowners for the ECB’s asset quality review, which aims to shine a light on eurozone banks’ portfolios, according to people familiar with the process.

European Union finance ministers claimed “good progress” after talks in Brussels as they worked to break a deadlock on a euro-area bank-failure law urgently sought by the European Central Bank, Bloomberg News reported. The EU is searching for a compromise on the Single Resolution Mechanism and an accompanying common fund to cover the cost of saving or closing banks. ECB President Mario Draghi last week warned that failure to reach a deal before May’s European Parliament elections would have severe consequences for the euro zone and its fledgling banking union.

The European Central Bank's stance on how bad loans are defined will be one of the biggest revelations to the euro zone's largest banks when it details on Tuesday how it will test balance sheets, three sources with knowledge of the tests told Reuters. The details will give the 128 banks being tested their most explicit insight to date on how their books will be examined by inspectors looking at whether they need billions of euros of extra capital to strengthen balance sheets. Estimates of the capital shortfall range from 280 billion euros ($388.13 billion)to as much as 770 billion.