Bank of Montreal has sold about £300 million ($383 million) of Thames Water’s senior debt at an almost 30% discount, Bloomberg News reported. The Canadian lender sold a mix of the utility firm’s senior debt, including bilateral loans and privately placed debt, split across Class A instruments with different maturities. The debt was sold for a little over 70% of its face value, following an auction process with a reserve price of 65%, which closed on Friday, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg News.

Parents of children who attended a nursery which closed without notice have said they are owed hundreds of pounds and have had to find alternative childcare, BBC.com reported. Capellas in Balsall Common closed its doors in the middle of June. Staff told the BBC that they had not been paid, and they had no idea if it was coming. The nursery's director, Martin Wallbank, said that the closure was due to financial pressures, and that all parents would receive owed payments through the insolvency process. He added that payments were also being made to staff pensions.

Glencore Plc will pay $152 million after Swiss authorities wrapped up an investigation into the commodities trader and miner, marking the end of more than six years of legal probes across Europe and the Americas, Bloomberg News reported. Swiss prosecutors found that Glencore failed to take reasonable measures to prevent the bribery of a Congolese public official by a business partner in 2011, the office of the attorney general said in a statement on Monday.

A court in Dusseldorf has initiated insolvency proceedings for fashion retailer Esprit's European operations, impacting Esprit Europe GmbH and six other German subsidiaries, according to court documents published on Thursday, DPA International reported. The global firm, which filed for bankruptcy in May due to insolvency and over-indebtedness, has appointed Lucas Flöther as custodian. About 1,300 employees have been notified and salary payments are assured until insolvency-related terminations take effect.

Struggling Oudenaarde-based GAN specialist BelGaN has failed to secure the investment needed to continue and has declared bankruptcy, Evertiq.com reported. BelGaN's history goes back to 2008, when ON Semiconductor acquired the Oudenaarde site and made semiconductor products for the automotive, industrial and medical sectors. In 2022, BelGaN acquired the fab, and decided to switch production from traditional silicon chips to gallium nitride chips, which can be used in electric chargers, electric cars and data centres. The company ran out of cash to fund the transition, hence this announcement.

The staff of the troubled Liberty Częstochowa steelworks in southern Poland received notice on Wednesday of a 40% cut in their August wages amid hopes that a buyer or new leaseholder will come forward before a September deadline, TVPWorld.com. The British-owned mill was declared bankrupt at the request of its creditors on July 25. The new, lower rates of pay will remain in place while a new leaseholder is sought to take control of the century-old mill. The receivers have set a deadline of September 1 for finding a new tenant or beginning the sell-off of its assets.

The risks still circling Sweden’s commercial real estate industry were laid bare late on Thursday when the debt crisis deepened for one of the country’s most high profile landlords, Bloomberg News reported. The Swedish Tax Agency filed a petition with a court for Oscar Properties Holding AB to be declared bankrupt, adding to a growing list of claimants that have sought insolvency proceedings against the former developer of luxury apartments.

U.K. retail footfall levels slipped in July, when consumers shifted their spending to holidays and leisure activities from shopping, according to a study, the Wall Street Journal reported. The number of visits to stores—comprising high-street shops, retail parks and shopping centers—for the four weeks ended July 27 fell 3.3% from the same period a year earlier, accelerating from a 2.3% decline in June, according to data from British Retail Consortium and Sensormatic Solutions IQ published Friday. The fall marked the 12th consecutive month of decline in U.K. store visits.

Ukraine has made a payment of about $200 million to holders of its GDP warrants, securities that weren’t part of a recent $20 billion eurobond restructuring agreement with private creditors, the finance ministry said, Bloomberg News reported. The payment comes after the finance ministry said in a statement in July that it intended to pay a consent fee in early August linked to $2.6 billion of outstanding warrants, as well as a deferred payment on the notes from 2021.

A senior member of the Barclay family, which owns The Telegraph, has struck a confidential settlement with a leading private bank to avoid the threat of bankruptcy, The Telegraph reported. According to court filings, Investec has dropped a legal claim against Alistair Barclay after months of wrangling over almost £1m in unpaid debts. The settlement was submitted to the High Court in late July, two days before Mr Barclay was expected to appear before a judge. Details of the agreement have been kept private.