Sweden

Airline SAS AB received approval from a bankruptcy court in New York for a $1.2 billion rescue package that will see Air France-KLM and private equity firm Castlelake LP become owners in the Scandinavian flag-carrier, Bloomberg News reported. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2022, saying it faced a significant decline in passenger demand during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as a series of pilot strikes and intense competition from low cost air carriers.

Swedish landlord SBB’s offer to buy back some of its bonds at steep discounts may be tantamount to a default, according to a statement from S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. The ratings agency placed Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, as it is otherwise known, on watch for a possible downgrade to selective default in a statement Friday. S&P said it would be able to assess further once the final results of the buyback were published.

Embattled Swedish landlord SBB is facing an inflection point after one of its creditors demanded its money back, the first time such a written notice has been given, Bloomberg News reported. Stockholm-based Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB — as the firm is officially known — has been at the center of Sweden’s property crisis as landlords scramble to find ways to refinance billions of dollars of bonds amassed in the cheap-money era. Now one of those bondholders has run out of patience, saying repayment is needed on the grounds SBB breached a key term in its debt.

Swedish bankruptcies increased to their highest level for the month of October since records began in 1999, according to data compiled by collection agency Creditsafe, Bloomberg News reported. During the month, 795 limited companies went bankrupt, marking an increase of 18% from October last year and 77% compared to the same month in 2021. “We have not been anywhere near such high levels before for the month of October,” said Managing Director Henrik Jacobsson of Creditsafe i Sverige AB in a statement on Wednesday. Higher levels have previously been recorded for other months.

The Nordic construction industry is facing further challenges as two of the region’s largest builders, YIT Oyj and Skanska AB, report difficulties in selling properties, Bloomberg News reported. YIT Oyj has seen a 30% increase in completed unsold apartments in the third quarter, while Skanska AB experienced a more than 50% decline in quarterly profit due to a weak market outlook in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. This indicates a worsening situation for the construction industry in the Nordic region.

Sweden’s economy was stagnant last quarter, as rising borrowing costs and growing unemployment hurt spending in the Nordic region’s largest country, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product, adjusted for seasonal swings, was unchanged in the third quarter from the previous three-month period, according to preliminary data published by Statistics Sweden on Monday. The development was weaker than expected by economists, who had penciled in growth of 0.3%, following a slump in the second quarter.

The management of bankrupt electric truck maker Volta Trucks is urgently seeking a buyer to take the company out of administration and help it complete the ramp-up to mass production, a source familiar with the issue told Reuters. Volta, which is headquartered in Sweden and has operations in the United Kingdom, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday citing the bankruptcy in August of its supplier Proterra and uncertainty over its battery supplier, which had made it hard to raise sufficient capital.

Sweden’s Volta Trucks AB is planning to file for bankruptcy following a breakdown in its supply chain, Bloomberg News reported. The decision comes roughly two months after Volta’s battery supplier Proterra Inc. failed, causing the truckmaker to fall short of production targets. The collapse “negatively affected our ability to raise sufficient capital in an already challenging capital-raising environment for electric-vehicle players,” Volta’s board said in a statement. Proterra’s U.S.

The chair of the board of Alecta, Sweden's largest pension fund provider, resigned on Monday following months of questions over the company's loss-making investments in U.S. banks and a Swedish property group, Reuters reported. Alecta, the subject of two ongoing probes by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) over risk taking, said in a statement its deputy board chair, Jan-Olof Jacke, will lead the board until a permanent candidate is elected. "In a situation where there has been too much focus on my person, I have decided to resign," Ingrid Bonde said in a statement.