Credit stress among European industrial companies rose during the third quarter to the most since the depths of the pandemic as weaker demand and investment pressures weigh on the sector, Bloomberg News reported. Those companies are facing the highest level of distress since September 2020, according to the Weil European Distress Index, which tracks financial market conditions and company performance. Manufacturing powerhouse Germany remained the country experiencing the most distress among the continent’s major economies, the study by law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges also said.

A recent study from Intrum indicates that while the number of businesses experiencing payment delays has slightly decreased compared to last year, the wave of bankruptcies is expected to persist through the fall. The accommodation and food service sectors remain among the hardest hit, but public administration, defense, and mining industries have seen the steepest rise in payment delays. Regionally, the highest concentration of businesses facing financial difficulties is in Northern Savonia and North Karelia.

Prosecutors of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) have been investigating for around a year possible frauds and the activity of an organised criminal group related to real estate developer Nordis, G4media.ro announced, quoting sources familiar with the investigations, Romania-Insider.com reported. However, no individual was indicted despite more than ten complaints filed against those behind Nordis since the beginning of the year, according to PressHub.

Sweden’s National Debt Office has ruled out activating $1.5 billion in credit guarantees for Northvolt AB that were tied to a now-halted expansion of the battery manufacturer’s main factory, Bloomberg News reported. Northvolt suspended the build-out at its plant in northern Sweden last month as it sought to streamline operations and contend with a cash crunch. The troubled electric-vehicle supplier never drew the guaranteed funds, and this week put the unit managing the project at Skelleftea, near the Arctic Circle, into bankruptcy.

Some of the biggest Thames Water bondholders have signed non-disclosure agreements to access sensitive information about the firm as debt talks progress. That also means they can no longer trade the company’s bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The step is key to pushing forward discussions with Britain’s largest water and sewage company about a cash injection to keep operations running. The bondholders that signed the NDA form a steering committee that represents the interests of a creditor group led by Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

A subsidiary of corpdSweden's Northvolt filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday after the project it was developing was cancelled, court filings showed, while the rest of the cash-strapped battery making group continued to consolidate operations, Reuters reported. The Northvolt Ett Expansion AB unit had debts estimated at between 2 billion and 3 billion Swedish crowns ($194 million and $290 million), a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee told business daily Dagens Industri.

Germany’s government has selected banks to arrange a potential selldown of power company Uniper SE, which could rank among the country’s biggest share sales in recent years, Bloomberg News reported. Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and UBS Group AG have been appointed as joint global coordinators on the potential offering, the people said, declining to be identified because the information is private. More banks could be added to the lineup ahead of the share sale in the first quarter of next year.

More than one in ten British pubs are at imminent risk of closure, with 11% of the UK’s pubs classed as technically insolvent and facing maximum credit risk, according to analysis by accountancy firm Price Bailey, Harpers.co.uk reported. Price Bailey reviewed the credit risk scores and balance sheets of all 37,961 pubs and bars across the UK. It found that 7,445 establishments (20% of the total) have negative net assets, meaning they are technically insolvent. Among these, 4,310 pubs are categorised as having a Maximum Risk score, up from 3,380 a year earlier.

U.K. grocery inflation ticked up slightly after August’s fall, according to the latest report from research firm Kantar, the Wall Street Journal reported. Annual grocery inflation increased to 2% for the four weeks to Sept. 29, up from 1.7% recorded in the month prior. The data comes ahead of the government’s Autumn budget and shows consumer spending remains tight. Spending on promoted items continued to rise, increasing by 7.4% in September as households sought to manage their finances. In comparison, full price sales rose by just 0.3%.