Norway

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.

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.

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.

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.

The head of Scandinavian airline SAS, opens new tab criticised the European Commission on Monday for taking a "cautious" approach to consolidation in the industry at a time when the EU is adding to the cost of flying, Reuters reported. Anko van der Werff, whose long-struggling carrier is the largest in Scandinavia, listed the European Union's flagship scheme to help curb greenhouse gas emissions as among the reasons why the EU "clearly wants flying to be more expensive".

Scandinavian airline SAS AB will cancel and redeem all of its common shares and commercial hybrid bonds when it emerges from chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. around June, Bloomberg News reported. “SAS reiterates its expectation that there will be only a modest recovery for general unsecured creditors, no recovery for subordinated creditors and no value for SAS AB’s existing shareholders,” the carrier said in a statement released at 11 p.m. Stockholm time on Tuesday.

The world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund is going after the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank, its management and the Wall Street advisers that aided its rise, the Wall Street Journal reported. Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s $1.5 trillion wealth fund, and other former SVB shareholders attacked the failed bank in a legal filing late Tuesday. The filing accused SVB and its executives of concealing the lender’s ailing health from public view, while also ignoring warnings about risks from rising interest rates.

The volume of commercial property transactions in the Nordic region fell to the lowest level in a decade last year, in an ominous sign for landlords needing to offload assets to bolster their finances, Bloomberg News reported. In 2023, only €20 billion ($21.9 billion) of properties traded hands in the region, property adviser Colliers International Group Inc said in an emailed statement. Activity tumbled by 64% in Finland compared with a year earlier, while volumes in Norway, Sweden and Denmark slumped by slightly more than half.

Norway's $1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, said on Friday it has been appointed by a U.S. court to co-lead an ongoing U.S. securities class action relating to the now-bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Reuters reported. SVB's collapse in March was the trigger for the worst banking shock since the 2008 global financial crisis, sending bank stocks globally on a wild ride.