Switzerland

There’ll likely be no cake to celebrate the 10th birthday this month of Irish-Swiss baker Aryzta. It is probably looking to raise some dough. In the week following July 31st, the end of its financial year, about €200 million was wiped off its value, The Irish Times reported. Its shares, mainly traded in Zurich, plummeted by 23 per cent to 11.12 francs (€9.63). By the close of business on Thursday, it was worth less than €840 million against €1.1 billion nine days earlier. That’s roughly a quarter of what it was worth just five months ago.

Swiss battery manufacturer and energy storage company Leclanché has negotiated a debt restructuring with its shareholders and, in a press release issued this morning, warned further measures may be required to shore up its balance sheet, pv magazine reported. The 109-year company announced its major shareholder FEFAM – a coalition of four investment funds – has purchased an unspecified amount of debt that was due on June 30 and postponed its maturity date for two years, until March 31, 2020.

Credit Suisse will get $385 million from its bankruptcy claim against Lehman Brothers Holdings, the Swiss bank said on Wednesday, less than the $1.2 billion it sought from the failed U.S. investment bank for terminated derivatives transactions, Reuters reported. The deal, which still must be approved by a U.S. court, also means the Swiss bank’s Strategic Resolution Unit (SRU) will take a roughly $70 million impact in the case dating to 2009, Credit Suisse said.

This Sunday Swiss voters will decide whether to try what may be the boldest financial experiment ever contemplated — dismantling their orthodox banking system and building a new one based on so-called sovereign money, or Vollgeld. The proposal is probably far too radical to have much chance of success, a Bloomberg View reported. Yet that’s a pity. The idea of sovereign money isn’t crazy. It has a long and distinguished academic pedigree and, as a practical matter, there’s a lot to recommend it. Switzerland would do the world a favor by giving the plan a try.

Credit Suisse AG is closing in on an agreement to settle a $1.2 billion derivatives demand against bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., reducing the claim to $385 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The settlement would end a 10-year fight over costs the Swiss lender said it incurred to replace tens of thousands of derivatives trades it had entered with Lehman before its collapse in 2008, Bloomberg News reported. Lehman had accused Credit Suisse of inflating its claim by over $1 billion.

Swiss prosecutors have launched criminal proceedings against two officials at PetroSaudi International Ltd. related to alleged dealings with Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd, an escalation of the Swiss probe that started nearly three years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported. 1MDB is the subject of investigations in the U.S., Switzerland and other countries into allegations that billions of dollars were siphoned out of the fund, which was set up by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009.

Glencore Plc is considering a bid for the Optimum coal operations in South Africa, which it sold in 2015 to a company part-owned by the politically connected Gupta family, according to two people familiar with the matter. Optimum supplies fuel to state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. and became a lightning rod issue for critics of the Gupta family members and their friendship with former president Jacob Zuma. Glencore placed the mine in bankruptcy protection in 2015 after Eskom refused to renegotiate an unprofitable supply contract and issued penalties, Bloomberg News reported.

Swiss company Schmolz + Bickenbach has been chosen by a Strasbourg court to buy troubled French steelmaker Ascometal, the court said on Monday, with Schmolz + Bickenbach’s bid prevailing over a rival one from Liberty House, Reuters reported. Ascometal, which makes specialty steel and employs around 1,300 workers, filed for court protection last November, and takeover offers for the company had come under the scrutiny of the Strasbourg court. Like Ascometal, Schmolz + Bickenbach is a producer of specialist steel products.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Swissport’s credit rating on Tuesday as a result of its weakening outlook for HNA Group, the Swiss aviation services company’s Chinese owner. S&P cut the company’s rating one notch to B-, deeply in “junk” territory, the Financial Times reported. HNA Group acquired the Swiss airport services group at the start of 2016, and last week the ratings agency lowered its assessment of the group’s creditworthiness due to the “aggressive financial policy” and the risk of “tightening liquidity at China’s most prolific dealmaker.

Vitol Group’s negotiations to buy Noble Group Ltd.’s oil trading unit are “very complicated” and may not end in a deal, the chief executive officer of Vitol said, adding to pressure on his Hong Kong-based rival, Bloomberg News reported. The sale of the oil business is crucial to the survival of Noble Group, once Asia’s largest commodity trader. It is rushing to sell the unit in order to pay back about $1 billion of debt under its secured credit facilities, of which the largest matures in mid-January.