Arcadia Group agreed to provide 210 million pounds ($266.64 million) in security to its pension schemes, which includes an additional 25 million pounds agreed with The Pensions Regulator, the company said in a statement on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The agreed security amount is in addition to the 100 million pound cash support that Christina Green, British retail businessman Philip Green’s wife, agreed to provide to the scheme in May.

Business conditions in Italy’s manufacturing industry deteriorated in May for the eighth successive month, although the rate of decline slowed, according to a closely watched survey released on Monday, the Financial Times reported. The IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index for the manufacturing industry in Italy on Monday reported a rise in May to 49.7, which indicates the majority of manufacturers still reported a contraction in activity, from 49.1 a month earlier. The reading was stronger than the 48.6 consensus from Reuters poll of analysts.

Piraeus Bank, the biggest Greek lender, has announced a partnership with Sweden’s Intrum group to reduce a €7bn pile of bad loans that has been holding back its capacity to finance companies that survived the country’s economic crisis, the Financial Times reported. The €410m deal will create a new Greek debt collection business 80 per cent owned by Intrum and 20 per cent by Piraeus. However, the bank’s non-performing debt, which amounts to almost half the loan book, will remain on its balance sheet.

The board of North of England telecoms group KCom has pulled its recommendation of a takeover by a pension fund, instead throwing its weight behind a higher bid from a Macquarie investment fund, the Financial Times reported. KCom — which was briefly one of the UK’s highest-valued companies during the dotcom bubble — said on Monday its board planned to unanimously recommend a £563m offer from Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets instead of the £504m offer from the trustees of the Universities Superannuation Scheme, which it backed last month.

Shares in Kier plunged 40 per cent on Monday as it warned that profits would be about £40m lower than expected, adding to fears over the health of the UK outsourcing and construction sector, the Financial Times reported. In an unscheduled trading update, Kier said it expected underlying operating profit for the year to June 30 to be £40m lower than analyst estimates of £169m.

U.K. retail sales declined by the most on record in May, with sluggish growth in online sales and Brexit-related uncertainty taking a toll, Bloomberg News reported. Total sales fell by 2.7%, the biggest drop since at least 1995 when excluding any distortions caused by the timing of Easter. While some of the drop can be accounted for by comparing to last year -- when sales were boosted by sunshine, the World Cup and a royal wedding -- political and economic uncertainty played a significant role, the British Retail Consortium and KPMG said.

Deutsche Bank AG fell to a fresh record low Monday amid a broad-based slump in European bank stocks, adding to pressure on Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing to come up with a more decisive solution for his ailing investment bank, Bloomberg News reported. With concerns about a widening trade war weighing on global stocks and clouding the outlook for higher interest rates, the lender fell as much as 4.7% in Frankfurt trading. That left the shares below 6 euros ($6.70) for the first time, while the cost to protect against a default in the bank’s debt jumped.

The Italian government has told the European Commission that it plans to launch “a comprehensive plan of spending review and revenue enhancement” in a bid to avert a row over the country’s mounting debts, the Financial Times reported. Brussels wrote to Rome on Wednesday, expressing concern about its budget forecasts and warning the Italian government against its attempts to expand Italy’s budget.

Deutsche Bank AG and UniCredit SpA moved some of their swaps trades from London to Frankfurt in May as banks used a lull in the ongoing Brexit drama to prepare for the worst, Bloomberg News reported. About 10 banks took part in a switching run where lenders closed existing swaps positions in the U.K. and opened equivalent ones in Germany, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the trades are private. Some of the 10, including JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR is interested in buying Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery, although specifics from the Russian side are not known yet, SOCAR’s deputy vice president told Reuters. Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, is in talks with potential investors to sell the Siberian refinery after gaining the rights for the majority of the indebted business, Reuters reported. “We are interested in this purchase indeed, but proposals are not defined yet,” Vitaly Baylarbayov told Reuters on Thursday at the annual Caspian Oil and Gas conference in the Azeri capital, Baku.