Italy

Air France-KLM has ruled out stepping in to save near-bankrupt Alitalia, with its chief executive telling shareholders on Tuesday that its past experience of cross-shareholdings and a failed merger plan would discourage it from investing directly in Italy again, Reuters reported. In 2008 Air France-KLM walked away from a planned takeover of Alitalia after talks with the Italian carrier's unions broke down. Earlier this month Alitalia went into administration for the second time in less than a decade after workers rejected a restructuring plan.

Since Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election removed fears of a chaotic “Frexit”, many pessimists have turned to Italy as the next likely cause of problems for investors in Europe. So far, however, investors don’t seem to be listening, the Financial Times reported. The FTSE MIB – Italy’s benchmark stock index – has been the best performer among major European stock indices since the first round of the French vote last month, climbing more than 10 per cent. That’s well ahead of even France itself, where the CAC has risen only 6.9 per cent.

Loss-making airline Alitalia, which asked to be put under special administration on Tuesday, had debts of around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) as of the end of February, Italy's government said on Saturday, Reuters reported. In a document marking the opening of the special administration process and the appointment of three commissioners to run the airline, the government said Alitalia had current liabilities of around 2.3 billion euros and assets worth 921 million.

Alitalia will be put up for sale starting in two weeks with the aim of finding a buyer for the entire airline to stave off liquidation, a senior Italian official said. A day after Alitalia collapsed into administration, Carlo Calenda, the economic development minister, set some goals for talks around the airline’s future, the Financial Times reported. “Within 15 days the commissioners will be open to expressions of interest,” Mr Calenda said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

In a year filled with European elections, no one wants another debt crisis—even if this requires pretending that Greek politicians will implement pro-growth reforms they’ve repeatedly shunned, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. That’s the meaning of this week’s tentative agreement between Greece’s creditors and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government. Though the details aren’t public, Athens has agreed to make certain reforms in exchange for an approximately €7 billion disbursement from a 2015 bailout package so Greece can meet July debt repayments.

When the Italian airline Alitalia went bankrupt in 2008, the government swooped in with taxpayer money and Pope Benedict — a regular rider — offered the carrier a blessing. Six years later, as Alitalia stumbled into debt yet again, the government engineered another rescue, the International New York Times reported.

Veneto Banca, the troubled Italian lender which is in the process of requesting state aid to secure its future, has liquidated its Irish wholesale banking operation, Veneto Ireland Financial Services, the Irish Times reported. The move comes as Dublin ups its efforts to compete with Paris and Frankfurt and attract more financial services companies looking to relocate from post-Brexit London to remain in the European single market.

Italians are watching their flag carrier Alitalia go into yet another financial tailspin, and a growing number of them believe it would be better for the country if it crashed. Outraged at repeated state bailouts that have cost taxpayers more than 7 billion euros (5.88 billion pounds) over a decade, many Italians are taking to social media to urge the government to resist the political temptation to rush to its rescue again, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "In electoral terms, Alitalia is worth nothing.

Italy's economic development minister says that failing airline Alitalia will receive a government bridge loan to keep it operational while a new owner is sought, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Carlo Calenda told Radio 24 on Wednesday that a loan of 300 million to 400 million euros ($326 million-$435 million) would keep the airline flying for six months under receivership.

The board of Alitalia has convened a shareholder meeting for April 27 to discuss the company’s future – including placing the Italian airline into administration – after workers rejected a rescue deal in a vote on Monday, the Financial Times reported. In a statement on Tuesday, Alitalia directors said they had noted the outcome of the referendum with “regret”, since it made a planned €2bn recapitalisation of the country’s flag carrier “impossible”.