KBC Bank Ireland’s chief executive, Peter Roebben, has given his strongest indication that the bank may sell long-standing problem mortgages to avoid being forced by regulators to set aside more expensive capital against these loans, The Irish Times reported. “We have to keep the option of a potential sale of the deeper, longer-lasting historical non-performing book,” Mr Roebben said in a wide-ranging interview with The Irish Times.

The High Court has appointed joint provisional liquidators to a Dublin city centre based nursing home, The Irish Times reported. The application was in relation to St Monica’s Nursing Home Ltd, which ran the elderly care facility at Belvedere Place, Dublin had catered for 46 residents, and had employed 65 full-time and part-time employees.

The level of corporate insolvencies in Ireland may peak next year at levels last seen at the end of the financial crisis as the real cost of the Covid-19 economic shock on businesses becomes apparent, according to a leading insolvency expert, The Irish Times reported. “In the short-term my prediction is that insolvency numbers will return in 2021 to the worst numbers of the last recession,” said Neil Hughes, insolvency practitioner and managing partner of Baker Tilly Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

Allied Irish Banks has taken a €1.2bn charge to cover coronavirus loan losses as the country’s largest lender by market capitalisation faces “severe and rapid deterioration” in economic conditions due the pandemic, the Financial Times reported. AIB said the charge, higher than analysts had anticipated, would represent the “significant majority” of full-year loan losses, as it forecast declining interest and fee income this year. Colin Hunt, chief executive, said the bank had adopted a “very conservative and prudent approach” to provisioning in the first half.

A property investor is suing developer Greg Kavanagh for €6.4 million over alleged default on a debt related to loans to his company and personal guarantees, The Irish Times reoprted. Anne O’Neill, Mount Pleasant Square, Dublin, is seeking summary judgment for the money against Mr Kavanagh, of Shaw’s Lane, Bath Avenue, Dublin. She claims he failed to meet a demand for repayment issued last May and has brought High Court proceedings.

Covid-19 flight groundings pushed Ryanair to a €185m loss in the three months to June, as 99 per cent of the fleet stayed stuck on the tarmac from mid-March on, the Financial Times reported. Last year it made a €243m profit over the same period. Revenues tumbled by almost €2.2bn — 95 per cent — to just €125m, while costs only came down 85 per cent. But the airline has been scaling its flight schedule back up quickly since lockdowns started to lift: 40 per cent of flights were due to run in July, 60 per cent in August and 70 per cent come September.

It is hard to know just how close to the edge Government Covid-19 travel restrictions are pushing Aer Lingus. Irish Airline Pilots’ Association president Evan Cullen warned the Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response on Friday it was not sustainable for the carrier to continue burning €1.5 million a day with little revenue being generated, the Irish Times reported. Cullen noted such a rate of cash burn is not sustainable for any business. These were common sense points.

Irish travel tech company CarTrawler has seen a rise in bookings in recent months although it doesn’t expect business to fully recover until next summer at the earliest, The Irish Times reported. UK private equity group TowerBrook took control of the company in return for a €100 million cash injection in May after it was thrown into emergency debt restructuring talks due to the grounding of airline fleets globally amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ardagh Group, the glass and metal containers group led by Dublin financier Paul Coulson, swung into a loss in the three months to the end of June as its sales fell amid the Covid-19 pandemic and it booked one-off expenses relating to a refinancing of some of it debt, The Irish Times reported. The New York-listed company reported a net loss of $64 million (€55.3m ) for the period, compared to a $69 million profit for the same three months last year. Sales dipped by 6 per cent during the second quarter to $1.61 million.

The High Court has extended the period of bankruptcy of a Co Monaghan farmer, who was adjudicated a bankrupt in February 2016, to February of 2024, The Irish Times reported. After a short hearing on Monday afternoon, Ms Justice Teresa Pilkington said she was “very far from satisfied” that there had been full co-operation from John Hoey, of Annacroft, near Carrickmacross. Mr Hoey, who was present in court, became bankrupt in 2016 after a petition from John Kelly Fuels, Promenade Road, Dublin, for a debt of more than €260,000.