Italy's economy failed to grow between April and June as the country struggled with its creaking banking sector. GDP growth shrank to 0% in the second quarter compared to 0.3% in the first quarter.Germany's economy also slowed in the second quarter, albeit less markedly than had been expected.  Europe's largest economy expanded by 0.4%, down from 0.7% in the first quarter, but above forecasts of 0.2%. Overall, a second estimate of GDP across the eurozone confirmed that growth halved to 0.3% from 0.6% in the first three months of the year.GDP also fell across the 28-nation European Union to 0.4% from 0.5% between the first and second quarters.  In Italy, analysts had expected GDP to grow by between 0.1% and 0.3%.Italian Prime Minister Mario Renzi, is battling to reduce the bad debt in its banking sector, which is currently buried under €360bn worth of bad loans. Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italy's third largest bank and the world's oldest lender, is saddled with €46.9bn of bad debt.  Alberto Bagnai, economic policy professor at the University of Chieti-Pescara, said: "There is no way to solve the banking problem without economic growth. If the whole nation doesn't start earning more it can't pay back its debts - public or private." The government expects the country to grow by 1.2% this year. However, the International Monetary Fund recently reduced its economic growth from 1.1% to 1%.The new data means that growth in the Eurozone's three biggest economies - Germany, France and Italy - has either slowed or completely stalled between the first and second quarters. France recorded no growth between April and June after GDP rose by 0.7% in the first quarter, boosted by business from the Euro 2016 football tournament.

Six investors, including American funds Apollo Global Management and KKR, are interested in the platform that will manage non-performing loans of approximately 9 billion Euros of the portfolio of "Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena" SpA, sources quoted by Reuters claim. They also state that "Monte dei Paschi" has informed the potential bidders that the deal concerning the platform will go ahead, even though with slightly different terms than initially. The oldest bank in Italy is selling its 27.7 billion Euros non-performing loan portfolio as part of a complex scheme for the securitization of loan, as part of its complex rescue plan. "Monte dei Paschi" is working together with Italian investment bank "Mediobanca" on creating a platform that would manage the NPL portfolio and to bring in a partner that would improve the debt collection activity. "Monte dei Paschi" has announced on Friday that the platform would manage 9 billion Euros in NPLs, meaning one third of the loans sold as part of the aforementioned scheme.  According to sources, the bidders for the "Monte dei Paschi" platform are Cerved Credit Management, KKR in tandem with Varde Partners, Apollo Global Management, Cerberus, Prelios - together with Christofferson Robb & Company - and Lone Star. The "Monte dei Paschi" officials and those of the other parties mentioned made no statements about the report by Reuters.

Turkey tried to assure its citizens and the outside world on Thursday that there will be no return to the deep repression of the past, even though President Tayyip Erdogan has imposed the first nationwide state of emergency since the 1980s.  With Erdogan cracking down on thousands of people in the judiciary, education, military and civil service after last weekend's failed coup, a lawmaker from the main opposition party warned that the state of emergency created "a way of ruling that paves the way for abuse". Announcing the state of emergency late on Wednesday, Erdogan said it would last at least three months and allow his government to take swift measures against supporters of the coup that attempted to topple him over the weekend.  It will permit the president and cabinet to bypass parliament in passing new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary. For some Turks, the move raised fears of a return to the days of martial law after a 1980 military coup, or the height of a Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s when much of the largely Kurdish southeast was under a state of emergency declared by the previous government.   Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek - who previously worked on Wall Street and is seen as one of the most investor-friendly politicians in the ruling AK Party - took to television and Twitter in an attempt to calm nervous financial markets and dispel comparisons with the past. "The state of emergency in Turkey won't include restrictions on movement, gatherings and free press etc. It isn't martial law of 1990s," he wrote on Twitter. "I'm confident Turkey will come out of this with much stronger democracy, better functioning market economy & enhanced investment climate." But markets were less than confident. The lira currency was near a new record low, while the main stock index was down 3.6 percent. The cost of insuring Turkish debt against default also surged.  Erdogan blames a network of followers of an exiled U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, for the attempted coup in which 246 people were killed and hundreds more wounded as soldiers commandeered fighter jets, military helicopters and tanks in a failed effort to overthrow the government.

A 62-year-old grandfather walked away unscathed from the crash landing with the 300 other people on board, moments before the plane exploded in a fireball. Mr Khada, from India, then had another stroke of luck when his winning  lottery ticket turned him into a millionaire. The lucky ticket number 0845 was drawn in the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire lottery at Concourse A at Dubai International Airport. Mr Khadar, who works in a Dubai car dealership, bought the ticket in the airport on his way to Thiruvananthapuram in the south Indian state of Kerala. On his return trip, he was seated on the plane which crash landed and caught fire. He collected his prize on Tuesday, which came just four months before he was due to retire.  He told Gulf News: "I have been working in Dubai for 37 years, and I have always felt like this is my country. "I live a simple life, and now that it’s my time to retire, I feel like God gave me a second life when I survived the plane crash, and blessed me with this money to follow all this up by doing good things".  Mr Khadar plans to move back to India and try to find a job where he can help people in need.  He said: "I am blessed to have finally won with Dubai Duty Free and can’t wait to share the news with my family.  "If you ask me about my plans, I obviously want to help the children in Kerala who are less fortunate than others and need some financial help and medical support  “I don’t want to give it to a charity or build a business, I want to go out and find people who really need help and give them money. I was poor, and I know what people go through".

Six investors, including American funds Apollo Global Management and KKR, are interested in the platform that will manage non-performing loans of approximately 9 billion Euros of the portfolio of "Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena" SpA, sources quoted by Reuters claim. They also state that "Monte dei Paschi" has informed the potential bidders that the deal concerning the platform will go ahead, even though with slightly different terms than initially. The oldest bank in Italy is selling its 27.7 billion Euros non-performing loan portfolio as part of a complex scheme for the securitization of loan, as part of its complex rescue plan.
"Monte dei Paschi" is working together with Italian investment bank "Mediobanca" on creating a platform that would manage the NPL portfolio and to bring in a partner that would improve the debt collection activity. "Monte dei Paschi" has announced on Friday that the platform would manage 9 billion Euros in NPLs, meaning one third of the loans sold as part of the aforementioned scheme. According to sources, the bidders for the "Monte dei Paschi" platform are Cerved Credit Management, KKR in tandem with Varde Partners, Apollo Global Management, Cerberus, Prelios - together with Christofferson Robb & Company - and Lone Star. The "Monte dei Paschi" officials and those of the other parties mentioned made no statements about the report by Reuters.

The reaction of NBR counselor Cristian Bichi, who posted on the NBR website the following clarifications, is increasingly important for BURSA's readers, because the "bail-in" subject (which BURSA has been debating since 2013) has been heavily debated in the comments section. One of the readers who stands out among the commenters on the bursa.ro website (through his competence and information), who uses the nickname Cristi C, argues, (with documented evidence) that the "bail-in" operation will not be applied in Romania. Cristian C. Bichi, is also about to convince us, right now, that the transposition in the Romanian legislation of the European Directive for the Resolution of Banks and Investment firms - in short the "Bail-in law" - does not endanger small depositors, neither Romanians nor those in other European countries: 
"The equivalence between the internal recapitalization and the seizure of the bank deposits of the population (the retirees' money is also being mentioned in this context, claiming that it is at risk) is also incorrect. Such an approach is mistaken, because nothing would happen to guaranteed deposits (those below 100,000 Euros - per depositor and per bank - protected by the Fund for the Guarantee of Bank Deposits), regardless of whether they belong to individuals or to companies".

Gossipers are saying that in a conversation (a private one, of course) Queen Elizabeth the 2nd has asked for three reasons why Great Britain should continue to be a member of the European Union. Because she didn't get them, more than half of the people she rules over has voted in favor of the UK exiting the EU, thus putting themselves at odds, with the other half, which voted to stay!! The queen's skepticism, otherwise well tempered and apparently benign, has generated a vote that has already caused her to lose her people, is about to cause the loss of her Kingdom, and in the end, unavoidably, the Crown! Perhaps, for a sovereign that has already ruled for more than 60 years, these losses are not so great! To us, however, who have difficulty understanding how Shakespeare, Keynes and Churchill could be expelled from Europe, based on the vote of the British, even through a referendum, this loss is hard to gauge and impossible to accept. Even though it may seem tardy, here in Bucharest, we can now provide the British sovereign the reasons she is looking for. How did we come up with them? Easy!