London's FTSE 100 fell on Tuesday after a solid start to the week, as a stronger pound outweighed a set of upbeat earnings, while data showed a nationwide lockdown hurt consumer spending in January.
Eliana Raszewski
(Adds bond prices, updates share price rise)
BUENOS AIRES, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Argentine state energy company YPF saw its shares and bond prices rocket on Monday after it won the support of a key creditor group with a last-ditch improvement to the terms of its $6.2 billion debt restructuring.
YPF shares were up more than 7% after it sweetened its offer late on Sunday, drawing support from the major Ad Hoc creditor group, which claims to hold about 45% of a bond maturing in March and which had publicly rejected an earlier offer.
That breakthrough could help clear the way for the company to complete the restructuring amid a wider economic crisis in the South American country. YPF has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and depressed demand.
By Reuters Staff
1 Min Read
BERLIN, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Germany is planning to spend an additional 6.22 bln euros this year to buy more COVID-19 vaccines, a finance ministry document seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.
The additional money, requested by Health Minister Jens Spahn and greenlighted by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, comes on top of 2.66 billion euros already earmarked in the 2021 budget to buy COVID-19 vaccines, according to the document.
The Health Ministry will use the total funds of 8.89 billion euros ($10.77 billion) to buy up to 635.1 million vaccine doses as part of the European Union’s joint procurement plans and Berlin’s national scheme, the document said. ($1 = 0.8258 euros) (Reporting by Michael Nienaber Editing by Caroline Copley)
Breakingviews
A BNP Paribas logo is seen outside a bank office in Nantes, France, July 16, 2020.
LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Parisians may be renowned for their fashion sense. Less so Paris-based BNP Paribas and its odd-fitting American retail bank. But BancWest, with around $96 billion of assets, offers something chic to continental Europe’s biggest bank by assets: optionality on the M&A dance floor. Selling it would give Chief Executive Jean-Laurent Bonnafé cash to buy something. And it offers leverage for a merger.
PNC Financial Services’ $11.6 billion purchase of Spain’s BBVA at a meaty 1.1 times book value has focused investors on BNP’s California-based business. On the same multiple of book value that BBVA’s business fetched it might be worth some $13.7 billion. That could be useful given Bonnafé’s aspirations to create Europe’s equivalent of JPMorgan.