Headlines

Greece is battling to raise funds to avoid defaulting on a €5bn debt repayment this week as international lenders remained deadlocked over how to reduce its overall debt even as Athens won parliamentary approval for its 2013 austerity budget, the Financial Times reported. The country’s debt management office has announced plans to cover the €5bn debt through a treasury bill auction on Tuesday, but Greek banks expected to buy the issue can only raise about €3.5bn of collateral acceptable to the European Central Bank, according to two senior Athens bankers.

SAS AB on Monday said it would cut salaries and more jobs as part of a new restructuring plan that is dependent partly on the support of labor unions, as the Scandinavian airline carrier tries to convince investors of its long-term future, The Wall Street Journal reported. The airline, partly owned by the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish governments, said its new plan will include cost savings of around three billion Swedish kronor ($445 million), outsourcing parts of customer service and improvements to information technology.

Years of poor governance and mismanagement have turned London's local government pension schemes into a "ticking time-bomb" that could mean a massive bill for taxpayers, a new report has found. The report by think-tank Pensions Institute published on Monday said that by "shopping around" for the most favourable actuarial assumptions, local government pension schemes were understating the real value of their pension liabilities and repeatedly deferring funding recovery plans.

Europe's biggest banks are continuing to stash more money at central banks, a move that reflects their lingering fears about the financial system despite signs of improvement. A dozen of Europe's largest banks reported holding a total of $1.43 trillion of cash on deposit at various central banks as of Sept. 30, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the banks' third-quarter financial statements. That represents at least the sixth consecutive quarter that the banks have increased their overall central-bank deposits.

Eurozone leaders face a new round of brinkmanship over Greece’s €174bn bailout after international lenders failed to bridge differences on how to reduce Athens’ burgeoning debt levels, pushing the country perilously close to defaulting on a €5bn debt payment due next week, the Financial Times reported. Officials had hoped to finalise the new programme, which extends Greece’s rescue two years to 2016, at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday. That would free up a long-delayed €31.3bn aid payment desperately sought by Athens.

German exports slid in September at the fastest pace since late last year, hit by declining demand among its crisis-wracked euro zone trading partners, Reuters reported. Imports also fell, adding to evidence that the crisis is inflicting a heavy toll on the currency bloc's largest economy. The trade figures come after a string of disappointing data for Europe's economic powerhouse. Business sentiment has worsened, the private sector has contracted, joblessness has risen and industrial orders have fallen at their sharpest rate in a year.

BTA Bank (BTA) exercised insufficient control and arranged payments to creditors in violation of a moratorium during its debt restructuring two years ago, according to a Kazakh government audit obtained by Bloomberg. The inspection, completed in February, found that the Almaty-based lender was breaching national legislation and bank regulations, a sign of an “inadequate level of control” on the part of BTA executives, the central bank’s financial oversight committee said in the document. The bank also arranged repayments that bypassed BTA itself, the regulator said.

France and Belgium Thursday agreed to inject a further €5.5 billion ($7 billion) into Dexia SA, putting one of the first European banking casualties of the 2008 financial crisis almost entirely in state hands and adding to the burden of cutting government debt and deficits amid the euro-zone recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. France agreed in the wee hours of the European morning to provide €2.59 billion and Belgium €2.92 billion in exchange for preference shares.

Britain is warning other EU countries that it will block a single eurozone banking supervisor unless those outside the system win more safeguards, as London expresses growing frustration that its demands are being left to last, the Financial Times reported. While David Cameron, the UK prime minister, has said he “does not want to stand in the way” of a eurozone banking union, behind the scenes British diplomats are stepping up calls for urgent progress to be made to resolve their concerns.

Environmental consultancy AEA Technology Group said it plans to appoint administrators for its companies in England and Wales, after failing to resolve debt issues, Reuters reported. AEA - which advises the U.S. Department of Energy, the British government and several companies on climate change and energy issues - said it was unable to assess its financial position and asked for its shares to be suspended from trading.