Norway’s central bank held its key policy rate at 4.5%, a level that is expected to remain unchanged until the end of the year as a weak krone continues to threaten efforts to bring inflation down, the Wall Street Journal reported. The policy rate has been at 4.5% since December 2023 and has helped slow inflation significantly from its peak, but underlying inflation hasn’t declined to the same extent, while a rapid rise in business costs and the krone’s depreciation will likely restrain further disinflation, the bank said Thursday.
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Norse Atlantic ASA will operate a smaller passenger network over the winter season, dropping all services to Los Angeles and paring back flights to New York as the airline works to preserve cash, Bloomberg News reported. The coming months will be pivotal for the Oslo-based long-haul specialist after it burned through half of its cash during the first half of the year. It’s reduced its airline schedule for the slower season, and will hire out more of its fleet to other airlines to provide steady income.
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The story of electric vehicle (EV) maker Fisker continues with its latest chapter: the filing for bankruptcy by its Norwegian subsidiary, as revealed by Norway’s Brønnøysund Register Center, EV reported. This follows the recent bankruptcy of the company’s subsidiary in Austria, where all the vehicles were manufactured at Magna’s plant in Graz. Egil Hatling, the head of restructuring at global law firm DLA Piper, has been appointed as the bankruptcy trustee, as initially reported by local media outlet Tek.
Norwegian oil and gas rig operator Dolphin Drilling ASA said it would file for bankruptcy on Wednesday after failing to reach a deal with creditors, falling victim to a prolonged downturn in the oil services sector, Reuters reported. Formerly known as Fred. Olsen Energy, Dolphin had debt of just over $1 billion at the end of 2018 and a net loss for the year of almost $300 million, according to its annual report.
Norway’s central bank held its key policy rate at 4.5% and reiterated guidance that the rate is likely to stay at that level for some time, as high wage growth is expected to keep inflation elevated, the Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank said on Thursday that while inflation has cooled, it remains above target, while surveys suggest that wages might rise more rapidly than previously anticipated. Policymakers worried that a cut in the key rate could cause inflation to remain above their target for longer than they would like.
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European natural gas prices settled at the highest level this year after flows from Norway slumped, highlighting the risk of relying too much on one major supplier, Bloomberg News reported. Benchmark Dutch gas futures closed 5.2% higher at €36.01 per megawatt-hour. The contract earlier surged as much as 13%, the biggest intraday jump since December. It isn’t clear how long an unplanned outage will last at Norway’s massive Nyhamna gas processing plant. At the same time, Norwegian flows into the UK’s Easington terminal, an entry point for a third of Britain’s total supply, halted.
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Norway’s central bank held its key policy rate at 4.5% and reiterated guidance that the rate is likely to stay at that level for some time, as high wage growth and a weak krone are keeping inflation elevated, the Wall Street Journal reported. Inflation is slowing but is still “markedly” above the 2% target while business costs have increased sharply in recent years, the bank said Friday. “The committee assesses that the policy rate is sufficiently high to return inflation to target within a reasonable time horizon,” it said in a statement.
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Scandinavian airline SAS said yesterday that a U.S. Bankruptcy Court had approved its chapter 11 reorganization plan, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles approved SAS AB’s bankruptcy restructuring at a court hearing in Manhattan, clearing the airline to move ahead with a restructuring that includes a $1.2 billion investment from a consortium of bidders, including the Danish government. The deal will provide up to $325 million in value to the airline’s junior creditors through a combination of cash and equity in the reorganized company.
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Norway's central bank will not raise interest rates again if the economy develops as expected, Governor Ida Wolden Bache said in a speech on Thursday, but she refrained from weighing in on when policy makers might start cutting borrowing costs, Reuters reported. In her second annual address since taking office in 2022, Bache also said Norges Bank believes inflation will gradually fall in the years ahead towards the official target of around 2%, while unemployment will rise somewhat.
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Scandinavian airline SAS said it would file a second amended chapter 11 plan of reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday and said it had obtained the support of the unsecured creditors' committee, Reuters reported. The company said it expected about $325 million to be allocated to general unsecured creditors as part of the amended plan, consisting of up to $250 million in cash and $75 million in new equity.
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