In 2006, three business luminaries huddled in Belgrade for a meeting so veiled in secrecy that it acquired a mystical code name: Hercules. The three titans wanted to test their strength by creating a giant retail company to dominate across the former Yugoslavia, Bloomberg News reported. The executives -- Ivica Todoric of Croatia’s Agrokor d.d., Zoran Jankovic of Slovenia’s Mercator Poslovni Sistem and Miroslav Miskovic of Serbia’s Delta Holding -- haggled for six hours before giving up, unable to agree on ownership stakes. It was a lucky escape for two of them.

British convenience retailer McColl’s Retail Group Plc posted on Tuesday lower like-for-like sales in the third quarter and said the collapse of cigarette wholesaler Palmer & Harvey (P&H) last year continued to disrupt its supply chain, Reuters reported. Like-for-like sales fell 0.9 percent for the 13 weeks ended Aug. 26 at McColl’s, which trades from about 1,600 convenience stores and newsagents in Britain. Total revenue rose 0.6 percent in the quarter.

Emso Asset Management, the $5.5bn emerging markets hedge fund, is to enter India’s growing corporate restructuring market with a local partner, the latest global investor to target a wave of $140bn in bad debt in the country, the Financial Times reported. A new bankruptcy law is forcing some of India’s biggest conglomerates into restructuring as local banks struggle with mounting bad debts following a boom in industrial lending.

Italy has less than three months to raise the bulk of its remaining annual financing needs — amounting to about €63bn in fresh debt — as its bond sales programme lags behind those of other big eurozone sovereigns, the Financial Times reported. The nation, which has been hit by a series of sharp bond market sell-offs since late May, has secured less than three-quarters of its total planned 2018 debt sales to meet bond redemptions and its net increase in borrowing, according to a Financial Times analysis.

Europe’s failure to reform out-dated pension systems has created a “ticking time bomb” for the region’s public finances, accord to HSBC Holdings Plc, Bloomberg News reported. Those nations with the highest debt levels are the most at risk, while political U-turns on recent reforms threaten to compound the situation, the London-based bank said. Italy could see its borrowings rise to 150 percent of economic output by 2040, even without the populist government’s proposed rollbacks.

Homebase creditors have approved a proposal to close 42 stores, putting 1,500 jobs at risk but giving the British home improvement retailer a lifeline from the brink of collapse, the company said on Friday. The proposed closures are further evidence of the deteriorating outlook for British retail sector, Reuters reported. They are part of a so-called Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) restructuring, allowing the business to avoid insolvency or administration. Homebase said the restructuring plan, proposed this month, was approved by 95.92 percent of the company’s creditors.

A deal with creditors has finally given Agrokor boss Fabris Perusko time to focus on leading the Croatian food group back from the brink of bankruptcy and fighting off international competition, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The former McKinsey & Company consultant was promoted in February from the board of Tisak, a chain of newsagents owned by Agrokor, to restructure the parent company. But the Croatian was promptly distracted by months of difficult talks with creditors.

Wonga co-founder Errol Damelin used to tell critics that “we are the good guys”, who would reach a $1bn Nasdaq listing by disrupting traditional banks that treated customers unfairly, the Financial Times reported. But when the company fell into administration on Thursday — having never made it to IPO — many observers were celebrating its demise. The company is the most prominent among hundreds of payday lenders that have gone out of business in the UK since the Financial Conduct Authority enforced a cap on charges in 2015.

Activity in UK factories expanded at the slowest rate in more than two years during August as weaker global growth led to the first fall in export orders since 2016, a survey of executives said on Monday. The monthly IHS Markit purchasing manufacturers index fell to 52.8 in August compared with 53.8 in July, anything above 50 is said to indicate an expansion while anything below means a contraction, the Financial Times reported. This was the survey’s lowest reading for 25 months. Analysts had expected the pace of growth in the sector to remain the same as the previous month.

Farmers' cooperative Arla Foods, one of the world's biggest dairy firms, plans to pay out its entire 2018 net profit of up to 310 million euros (278.48 million pounds) to its members after one of the hottest and driest summers on record. The firm, owned by 11,200 farmers in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, traditionally pays only a part of its profit to owners, but said it would make an exception this year due to the drought, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.