Sat, Oct 17, 2020 page10

• World Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  AVIATION

  Boeing 737 Max ‘safe’

  Europe’s top aviation regulator said he is satisfied that changes to Boeing Co’s 737 Max have made the plane safe enough to return to the region’s skies before the end of the year, even as a further upgrade that his agency demanded would not be ready for up to two years. After test flights conducted last month, the EU Aviation Safety Agency is performing final document reviews ahead of a draft airworthiness directive it expects to issue next month, agency executive director Patrick Ky said. That would be followed by four weeks of public comment, while the development of a sensor to add redundancy would take 20 to 24 months, he said.

  AUTOMAKERS

  Daimler earnings snap back

  Daimler AG’s earnings snapped back last quarter, with recovering vehicle sales and cost cuts giving the Mercedes-Benz maker the confidence to predict that momentum would last through end of this year. Earnings before interest and taxes surged to 3.07 billion euros (US$3.6 billion) for the three months ended last month, Daimler said on Thursday. The preliminary result far surpasses the average estimate for 1.61 billion euros among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. “Given the development of the third quarter, Daimler also expects a positive impact for the remainder of the year,” the company said. The luxury-car maker said its outlook assumes that there would be no further lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID-19. Daimler coped with the biggest disruption to the auto industry in decades better than feared, though it suffered a 1.68 billion-euro operating loss in the second quarter.

  MINING

  Australian firm plans layoffs

  Coal miner New Hope Corp Ltd yesterday said it would lay off up to 75 percent of its workforce from its corporate headquarters due to uncertainty around approvals for its environmentally contentious New Acland mine. The layoffs come as the outlook for Australian coal has worsened given China’s halt on coal imports from the country and prices that last month hit decade lows amid a COVID-19 pandemic demand slump and abundant cheaper natural gas alternatives. Under the restructuring, the majority of executives at the Brookwater, Queensland, office would be made redundant by the end of next month, the company said. Total cuts would equate to about 90 workers, it added. New Hope has already laid off 175 employees at New Acland while it awaits approvals for stage 3 expansion of its Queensland project.

  FRANCE

  Equity loans planned

  Paris plans to raise 20 billion euros ($23 billion) in quasi-equity loans for small firms hit by the COVID-19 pandemic by offering investors a state guarantee against the first 2 billion euros in losses, officials said. Fearing failures among firms which were already saddled with record levels of debt before the crisis, the government wants the program up and running by early next year as it battles the economic impact of the pandemic. Under plans to be presented to the financial sector on Monday next week, banks would first lend to small and medium-sized firms and then sell on 90 percent of the loans to institutional investors, people familiar with the proposals said. That would limit banks’ risk exposure to 10 percent of the loans, while also steering funds to viable firms. Since a public guarantee is involved, EU state aid regulators have to give the program their blessing, particularly the interest rate that would be charged.
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