Insolvency practitioner Gavin Jones discusses the kind of damages that might be claimed from a holding company or its directors in the event of the insolvency of a subsidiary – and the defences that might be available to mitigate these. With the Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) of House of Fraser reportedly hanging in the balance, the well-publicised difficulties facing the retail sector are widespread, Real Business reported.

Norwegian drillship and rig operator Fred. Olsen Energy, owner of the yard that built the RMS Titanic, is considering a debt and equity restructuring that would almost wipe out the value of its current shares, the company said. With debt and liabilities of more than $840 million at the end of June, Fred. Olsen last month stopped paying its creditors to preserve liquidity, making it the latest victim of a slow recovery in the oil and gas exploration sector, Reuters reported.

Shares of Britain's Interserve Plc dropped as much as 9 percent on Tuesday, as the construction and services company posted a loss in the first-half hurt by higher costs, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Interserve reported a loss before tax of 6 million pounds, for the six months ended June 30, compared to a profit before tax of 24.9 million pounds last year. Operating profit fell 30 percent to 40.1 million pounds in the latest half-year.

State-controlled Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) has set up a Dutch company to manage the Russian real estate assets seized from bankrupt tycoon Seán Quinn, The Irish Times reported. Bergkamp Investments BV, whose main activities are listed as renting out real estate and preparing property assets for sale, has taken over managing a portfolio once valued at €500 million.

A sharp fall in German manufacturing output in June has fuelled concern that a global trade war has deepened an export-led slowdown in the eurozone. Official figures published on Monday showed that the value of new orders placed with German manufacturers fell by 4 per cent between May and June, as overseas demand plunged, the Financial Times reported. The biggest monthly fall since the beginning of 2017 led the country’s economy ministry to state that trade tensions were hitting exports.

Italian two-year borrowing costs dropped below one percent on Monday as investors hunted for yield, though some of the bullishness was tempered by government officials’ comments that renewed fears about their commitment to fiscal discipline, Reuters reported. Last week’s announcement by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on a 2019 budget framework brought bond investors flocking back to Italy, the only short-dated euro zone securities offering relatively high yields.

The story of Banco Popular, the Spanish bank which failed in June last year and was subsequently bought by Santander for just €1, is still unfolding, the Financial Times reported. The Single Resolution Board (SRB), a Brussels body set up in 2015 to deal with bank failure, on Monday released its third valuation report for the bank. It is not good news for the investors who saw their holdings wiped out last year. Around €2bn in the bank's junior liabilities (which included additional tier 1 and tier 2 debt) were written down by the SRB ahead of Santander's purchase.

A rescue fund set up to help euro-using countries paid its final 15 billion-euro ($17.3 billion) bailout loan to Greece on Monday after objections by Germany delayed the payment by several weeks, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. The European Stability Mechanism said 9.5 billion euros (nearly $11 billion) of the loan would go toward a cash buffer Greece could use to meet its financial needs for almost two years. The other 5.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) was earmarked for paying off some of the country's considerable debt.

Heti Valasz, a bastion of conservative journalism in Hungary, said it was closing operations after entering bankruptcy and the resignation of its editor, a former spokesman of Prime Minister Viktor Orban who had become critical of the populist leader, Bloomberg News reported. "Valasz.hu will cease providing content today," the publisher said in a statement on its website. The magazine became the latest in a string of publications which have shut down or switched to a pro-government stance in recent years.

Deutsche Bank AG had the credit rating of one type of debt cut by Moody’s Investors Service after a change in German law last month paved the way for a more senior kind of borrowing, Bloomberg News reported. In a move that was widely anticipated, Moody’s downgraded the bank’s senior non-preferred debt to Baa3 -- the lowest investment grade -- from Baa2 and reclassified the bonds as “junior senior” debt. The government is now less likely to support what are currently senior notes, the ratings firm said in a statement Friday.