A deadline for bids for the stricken British Steel has been pushed back to the end of the month to allow prospective buyers more time to prepare offers, according to people briefed on the matter, the Financial Times reported. The official receiver overseeing the liquidation of the UK’s second-largest steelmaker had originally called for bids to be made by next Wednesday 12th June, but this has now been extended until around the 30th, said three people.

European Central Bank policy makers are gathering in Lithuania on Wednesday with stimulus on their minds. President Mario Draghi’s final few months before his term ends are being scarred by plunging inflation expectations as escalating global trade tensions whack confidence and stoke recession fears, Bloomberg News reported. Updated economic projections, to be presented by Executive Board newcomer Philip Lane, will signal whether the bloc needs yet another central-bank boost.

As Greece prepares for its first post-bailout national election next month, whoever emerges as the country’s next prime minister will face an immediate challenge: how to deal with the European Commission’s warnings of backtracking on reforms, Bloomberg News reported. A package of relief measures adopted by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government in May will incur a cost of more than 1% of gross domestic product in 2019 and beyond, the Commission said in its post-bailout review for Greece on Wednesday.

Philip Green’s Arcadia fashion group adjourned Wednesday’s creditor meetings to vote on the struggling British retailer’s restructuring plan until June 12, seeking more time to win over disgruntled landlords and avoid a collapse into administration, Reuters reported. Green needs his restructuring proposals for each of Arcadia’s brands - Topshop, Topman, Burton Menswear, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge and Wallis - to be approved by creditors, including landlords, or the group, which employs 18,000, will likely be placed into administration.

Greybull Capital, the private equity firm pilloried over last month’s collapse of British Steel, is preparing a bid for the group’s operations in France and the Netherlands, according to people briefed on the plan. The cherry-picking would see Greybull ditch the British parts of British Steel three years after acquiring the group from India’s Tata Steel for £1 and weeks after it fell into insolvency, the Financial Times reported.

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.