A group of creditors of Thames Water’s operating company have picked advisers for potential restructuring talks, Bloomberg News reported. The investors chose Jefferies Financial Group Inc. as a financial adviser and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP for legal representation, said people familiar with the matter, who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity. The creditors own private and public bonds from Thames Water Utilities Ltd. The moves comes as parent company Kemble Water Finance Ltd.

Atos said that it reached an agreement in principle with a group of banks, bondholders and the French State for much-needed liquidity until the troubled French IT company strikes a definitive agreement with creditors to trim its debt pile and restore profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported. The group said yesterday that it would receive 450 million euros ($488.8 million) in financing to keep operations going while it aims to strike a deal with creditors on a new capital structure by July.

A consortium including Hudson's Bay Company CEO Richard Baker's investment firm NRDC Corp is set to take over German department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Galeria, Germany's most prominent retailer, earlier this year filed for insolvency following the collapse of its parent Signa, the Austria-based property empire that has become the biggest casualty so far in Europe's real-estate crisis. Baker's Hudson's Bay Company had owned Galeria Kaufhof for several years before a sale to Signa and the chain's merger with Karstadt.

Office landlords, battered by a global crash, have been clinging to the hope that new buildings with strong green credentials will still demand top rents and prices. Dublin is emerging as a cautionary tale that such optimism may not hold up, Bloomberg News reported. In the city’s North Docks district, new buildings are falling into bankruptcy protection after US tech firms scaled back the amount of new space they leased and borrowing costs rose.

The Swiss National Bank sees no need for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be issued to the general public, Chairman Thomas Jordan said on Monday, Reuters reported. "Consumers and businesses already have access to a wide range of efficient and innovative payment instruments offered by the private sector," Jordan told an event in Zurich, in remarks that addressed a product known as a retail CBDC.

About 15 Ted Baker stores in the UK will be shut down, including shops in London Bridge and Milton Keynes, leading to nearly 250 job losses, joint administrators of the collapsed British fashion retailer said on Monday, Reuters reported. Ted Baker, a popular brand name in the UK, fell into administration last month, after more than a year of being sold to U.S.-based Authentic Brands Group. Authentic Brands is looking for a new operating partner for the retail and e-commerce business in the UK and across Europe.

The mortgage crisis will wipe out the savings of 1.2 million U.K. families this year and push many into insolvency, economists have warned, the Telegraph reported. Households having to remortgage face their bills rising by nearly 50pc, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). This will push the total number of families with no savings to 7.8 million, equivalent to 28pc of all households. The warning comes after the Bank of England on Thursday took analysts by surprise when it raised its base rate by 0.5 percentage points to 5pc.

German industrial production increased for a second month, underpinning hopes that Europe’s biggest economy may soon emerge from a shallow recession it probably witnessed in the last six months, Bloomberg News reported. The gauge increased 2.1% in February, led by construction, the statistics office said Monday. Despite this month’s increase, overall production is still well below pre-pandemic levels, an illustration of the challenges Germany’s important manufacturing sector had to endure since then — including a surge in energy costs following the war in Ukraine.

The venture capital arm of Italy's Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) will invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) over the next five years in artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, the state lender said on Monday, Reuters reported. The government in March had announced its intention to set up an investment fund to promote projects in the AI sector, backed by CDP, as part of its broader push, as chair of the G7, to focus on the impact of AI on jobs and inequality.

The investment firm of U.S. businessman Richard Baker (NRDC) is among the two remaining bidders for Germany's most prominent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, business outlet WirtschaftsWoche reported on Friday, according to Reuters. Galeria, which recently filed for insolvency, is seeking a new owner after the collapse of its parent Signa, the Austrian-based property empire that has become the biggest casualty so far in Europe's real estate crisis.