The trustees of British defined benefit - or final salary - pension schemes must be ready for possible employer distress or insolvency to protect their members as COVID-19 impacts the economy, the country’s pensions watchdog said on Thursday, Reuters reported. “Trustees are the first line of defence for savers,” Mike Birch, director of supervision at The Pensions Regulator said in a statement. “The faster they act, the more options and greater time they’ll have to protect members’ retirements.

One in seven Spanish workers are in businesses at risk of collapse, according to new research by the European Central Bank, excluding those who work for financial companies, the Financial Times reported. This is the highest rate of all large eurozone economies, and comes despite the country’s national furlough scheme. It compares with about 8 per cent of employees in Germany and France and 10 per cent in Italy, also taking into account the use of subsidies to keep people in work, the ECB found.

European banks need to prepare their balance sheets for the risk of pandemic-induced non-performing loans hitting them in the new year, the head of the EU agency tasked with winding down failing lenders has said, the Financial Times reported. Elke König, chair of the Single Resolution Board, rejected suggestions from the European Central Bank that the EU needs to set up a network of “bad banks” to handle higher non-performing loans (NPLs), but she warned banks needed to do intensive work to sort out viable loans from unviable ones.  In an interview with the Financial Times

Financial risks related to the coronavirus pandemic will last for months if not years, Switzerland’s financial market supervisor FINMA said on Wednesday, pointing to particularly heightened risk of defaults on corporate loans, Reuters reported. “Thanks to the cushion of liquidity and capital they have built up over the years and their operational readiness, Swiss financial institutions have been able to withstand the initial repercussions of the crisis well,” FINMA said in its second annual financial risk monitor.

Britain's Informa Plc said on Wednesday it could become cash positive by January after completing its debt restructuring and refinancing, coupled with its cost cutting programme, as the group struggles with the coronavirus hit to the events industry, Reuters reported. The world’s largest exhibitions group had now cancelled a 750 million pound short-term credit facility and 1.1 billion pounds worth of U.S. Private Placement loan notes in the last move in a restructuring, refinancing and rescheduling of its debt that began earlier this year.

Property developer Great Portland Estates on Wednesday reported an 18% plunge in the valuation of its retail portfolio as coronavirus restrictions hit the industry, and said office take-up in central London had dropped to record lows, Reuters reported. The FTSE 250-listed company, which owns 2.6 billion pounds worth of retail and office property in central London, said it expects rents and capital values in the British capital to fall further.

Mall owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield will seek new ways to manage its heavy debt after shareholders rejected a 3.5 billion euro ($4.15 billion) rights issue under pressure from activist investors, Reuters reported. In a rare rights issue rejection for a company on France’s blue-chip index, the shareholder vote fell narrowly short of the two-thirds majority required to pass the resolution, with 62% in favour of the capital increase.

Pandemic-hit Norwegian Air faces a battle for survival this winter, it said on Monday after the country's government declared that it will not provide additional financial support for the cash-strapped carrier, Reuters reported. Norwegian Air, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis and has grounded most of its fleet, said in August that it would run out of cash in the first quarter of 2021 unless it could secure fresh funds and has held talks with the government in the hope of winning support.

Britain’s Countrywide Plc has been approached by real estate management firm Connells Ltd about a possible buyout that would value the real estate agent at around 82 million pounds ($108 million), Reuters reported. Countrywide, which vies for market share with Foxtons, has been trying to recover from a botched 2015 restructuring that led to four profit warnings and a deeply discounted share issue. Shares in the debt-laden company jumped 45% on Monday after it disclosed Connells’ potential offer of 250 pence a share, and were at 210 pence by 1000 GMT.

One of the UK oldest shoe stores, Clarks has been accused of abusing insolvency processes by launching an unviable restructuring plan, Yahoo! News reported. Landlords say that the 195-year-old shoe chain is not able to meet the conditions of the company voluntary arrangement (CVA) after the firm pays out dividends to family shareholders. It comes after, Clarks launched a CVA last week that will see most of its 320 UK stores moving to rents based on turnover — where rent is calculated on the amount of cash that goes through the tills.