While private equity funds were prepared to keep injecting capital during the pandemic, believing that profits would stabilize again once normal operations resumed, now they are looking more selectively at the long-term viability of the companies they own, Bloomberg News reported. “Sponsors have to pick which businesses to keep supporting,” said David Morris, a senior managing director and head of the UK restructuring practice at FTI Consulting. “Part of that will depend on how far away they think they are from value and the speed at which they could go back to value.

Britain's payments regulator on Wednesday provisionally proposed a cap on cross-border interchange fees on retailers and other businesses charged by Mastercard (MA.N) and Visa (V.N) on transactions made between the UK and European single market, Reuters reported. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said a cap would protect businesses from overpaying, after it published interim findings of a market review on interchange fees charged since Brexit, when the bloc's longstanding cap ceased to apply in Britain.

The City of London, Britain’s historic financial district, is awash with construction, the intensity of which is not expected to let up soon, the New York Times reported. The City of London Corporation, the district’s governing body, has approved 10 new office towers, including one that will exceed the height of all others in the area, known locally as the Square Mile. Altogether, more than five million square feet of office space is under construction, with another five million square feet in the pipeline.

U.K. wage growth slowed at the sharpest pace in almost two years, a further sign that the labor market is cooling in response to a flagging economy, Bloomberg News reported. Average earnings excluding bonuses rose 7.3% in the three months through October compared with a year ago, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. That’s down from an upwardly revised 7.8% in the period through September. Economists had expected a figure of 7.4%.

Mercon Coffee Corp., the bankrupt global coffee trader, must try to negotiate a cheaper way to fund its restructuring case after a U.S. judge rejected a proposed loan from Coöperatieve Rabobank, Bloomberg News reported. Rabobank had agreed to loan Mercon as much as $40 million that would pay about 15% interest, plus an upfront fee of 3% on part of the debt and the payment of $3.8 million in expenses, according to court documents and Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles.

Sweden-based Nilar International AB filed for insolvency on Dec. 1 and has appointed Lars Nylund, an attorney for Advokatfirman Fylgia, as trustee in the bankruptcy, PV-Magazine.com reported. “The trustee is continuing the company’s operations with the aim of finding a new owner for the business,” the company said on its website.

Russians have enjoyed a dramatic increase in living standards over the course of President Vladimir Putin's nearly 24 years at the helm of Russian politics. On Friday, Putin said he would run again for the presidency, Reuters reported. High prices for oil, Russia's main export, boosted Putin's standing as the country emerged from the chaotic 1990s, raising incomes and purchasing power for millions of its citizens.

Earlier this week, European negotiators sat in a conference room in Brussels and debated for nearly 24 straight hours — dozing off at times and working a self-service coffee machine so hard that it broke, Bloomberg News reported. They came with a singular mission: reaching an agreement to regulate artificial intelligence. And they didn’t quite get there. But the EU’s internal market chief, Thierry Breton, didn’t want a long break over the weekend that would give lobbyists more time to weigh in, according to people familiar with the matter.

The number of insolvent Romanian companies inched down by an annual 0.2% to 5,378 in the first ten months of 2023, the country's trade registry, ONRC, said, SeeNews.com reported. The highest number of insolvent companies and legal entities was registered in the capital Bucharest, jumping by 17.8% on the year to 1,084, data published on the ONRC website on Wednesday showed. The central county of Covasna saw the lowest number of insolvencies in the ten months through August, with only 21 firms becoming insolvent, compared to 26 insolvencies recorded in the same period of last year.

The UK government has drawn up a “watch list” of local authorities that are on the brink of financial collapse and acknowledged that a funding shortfall is causing “significant” strain on many councils, Bloomberg News reported. Michael Gove, the UK’s secretary of state for leveling up, distanced the central government from the growing crisis after cuts to real terms funding for councils since 2010, saying that the troubles were largely linked to mismanagement. The remarks follow findings from the Local Government Association that one in five councils are on the brink of going bust.