France

Private-sector business activity in France shrank for a fourth month as the fall of the government over a budget dispute sapped confidence, Bloomberg News reported. S&P Global’s Composite Purchasing Managers Index came in at 46.7 in December, staying below the 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction. Still, it’s an improvement from last month and also a bit better than the median estimate among analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Manufacturing and services also stayed in contractionary territory, though the latter exceeded expectations.

Altice France and a group of secured creditors remain at odds over the terms of a deal to cut the company’s €23.7 billion ($24.9 billion) debt pile, including how much equity billionaire owner Patrick Drahi should give up, Bloomberg News reported. The embattled French telecommunications company sent its latest proposal to lenders last week. The size of the equity stake was among points taken issue with by creditors, who had previously also disagreed over the cost of the reinstated debt and the haircut they would have to take, according to company disclosures last month.

France has a debt problem, but the European Union in aggregate does not. French lawmakers last week ousted a prime minister for the first time in more than a half-century, the Wall Street Journal reported. Central to the paralysis that has gripped French politics is the government’s rising debt, which the ousted prime minister was proposing to tame through a combination of tax rises and spending cuts. It would seem like an unusual time for investment manager Pimco to declare its preference for European over U.S. government bonds.

The French government offered to buy Atos SE’s advanced computing assets for as much as €625 million ($653 million) after an earlier offer from the state expired, Bloomberg News reported. The non-binding bid gives the business an enterprise value of €500 million and may include additional payments based on future earnings, the company said in a statement on Monday. The offer, which expires in May, includes Atos’s artificial intelligence business as well as its supercomputers, which are used by researchers, the nuclear power industry and the military.

The sports equipment manufacturer Le Coq Sportif has been placed under judicial restructuring proceedings by the Paris Commercial Court, FashionUnited.uk reported. "Le Coq Sportif is relying on this procedure to respond to the challenges facing the brand while protecting its 330 employees and hundreds of indirect jobs," parent company Airesis said on Friday. The troubled company said in October that it was looking for "financing solutions".

Altice France and a group of secured creditors ended their first round of discussions without reaching a deal over how to restructure the company’s €24.4 billion ($25.7 billion) pile of debt, according to a statement on Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. The discussions between the embattled French telecommunications firm and the steering committee of its secured lenders were about finding ways to cut the company’s leverage.

Atos SE, the troubled French technology company that’s been fighting to avert bankruptcy, has agreed to sell its Worldgrid unit for €270 million ($294 million) including debt, Bloomberg News reported. French engineering and tech consultant Alten SA has received regulatory approvals to acquire Worldgrid, which provides consulting and engineering services to utility companies, and the deal is expected to close before the end of the year, Atos said in a statement on Tuesday.

Warnings over France’s financial situation grew on Friday when the Moody’s ratings agency issued a negative outlook for the country’s sovereign debt rating amid concerns about the nation’s rapidly rising debt and deficit, the New York Times reported. The outlook reflects what Moody’s said were heightened risks of political gridlock in France as Prime Minister Michel Barnier struggles to get a newly elected — and deeply divided — Parliament to pass an austerity budget. France has become one of the most financially troubled countries in Europe, with a ballooning debt and deficit.

Atos SE said a French commercial court approved its financial restructuring plan, paving the way for creditors to take control of the troubled French IT company in the coming months, Bloomberg News reported. Under the plan, Atos will receive about €1.5 billion to €1.7 billion ($1.6 billion to $1.8 billion) of new money by the beginning of 2025 to help fund its restructuring, the company said in its earnings statement on Thursday.