Administrators have been appointed to one of Northern Ireland’s best known women’s fashion retailers, which traded as Exhibit and employed about 100 people, the Irish Times reported. Cucco Retail Limited, which operated Exhibit, had 15 branches across the North and also two in the Republic – in Monaghan and Sligo towns. Joint administrators James Neill and Rachel Foster of HNH Group said a “general downturn in trading conditions, coupled with a significant change in consumer spending patterns over recent times” had significantly impact on Exhibit’s trade.

The number of people applying for debt relief during the third quarter of the year has more than doubled on last year, according to figures from the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI), the Irish Times reported. According to the ISI, there were 899 new applications in the third quarter of the year, more than twice the number received in 2015, and up by 22 per cent on the second quarter. More than three-quarters (78 per cent) of applications are for Personal Insolvency Arrangements (PIAs). These allow a person to return to solvency while staying in their home.

Representatives of Nueva Pescanova, the successor firm to the troubled Spanish fishing giant, have sued the old company, Pescanova S.A., alleging breaches of securities law, a regulatory filing indicates. Nueva Pescanova specifically alleges that during the 2014 merger that formed it from the remnants of debt-embattled Pescanova, the former company reserved "alleged advantages" from Nueva Pescanova. The new company would like to be indemnified for those advantages, according to the filing.

Portugal’s “anti-austerity” government has unveiled a draft budget for 2017 that seeks to raise pensions, reduce income tax and increase support for the poor without running foul of EU deficit rules, the Financial Times reported. António Costa, the prime minister whose minority Socialist government depends on the hard left for its survival, hopes the plan will lay to rest investor fears that Portugal could be at risk of needing a second bailout, an idea he dismisses as “nonsense”.

Greece and its creditors start a fresh round of talks this week on reforming its labour market, a tricky task for a leftist government sliding in opinion polls but needed if the recession-hit state can ever win debt relief, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was re-elected a year ago promising to fight to revive collective bargaining and resist reforms that may lower the minimum wage.

A hard Brexit would put 1,400 more UK companies into insolvency than a soft Brexit, according to new forecasts, the Financial Times reported. Compared with this year, by the end of 2019 the number of failing companies could jump almost a third to more than 26,000 if the UK leaves the EU with no new trade agreement in place, says Euler Hermes, which insures companies against the risk that creditors will not be able to pay their debts. A hard Brexit — a complete break with no access to the single market — would increase the risk of more bankruptcies, it says.

A centuries-old tapestry factory in Spain has come back from the brink of bankruptcy after an injection of public money, a debt restructuring plan and its biggest order in 200 years - a German commission for dozens of tapestries. The turnaround of the 296-year-old Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid is a rare bright spot for Spanish companies facing insolvency. Nearly 50,000 businesses have entered administration since the start of the country's economic downturn in 2008.

The crisis at Ericsson deepened on Wednesday when the world’s biggest maker of mobile network equipment reported a 94 per cent plunge in quarterly operating profit and tumbling sales, the Irish Times reported. The Swedish company is struggling with a drop in spending by telecoms companies, with new 5G technology still years away, and stiff competition from Finland’s Nokia and China’s Huawei. Its shares dropped more than 15 per cent to an eight year low in early trading after it missed analysts’ forecasts for a fifth straight quarter, and said it saw no sign of a quick upturn.

Deutsche Bank has received a cautious vote of creditor confidence. The German lender is issuing expensive debt, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. That shows it can get access to markets, despite a feared $14 billion American regulatory fine. It is less powerful a signal than buying debt back, as Deutsche Bank did in February — but at least it shows that investors do not fear losses that could eat into senior debt. The German bank is issuing like gangbusters.

The consensus from countless currency trades is that the harder the Brexit, the poorer the British and the weaker their currency. At least this is easier than having to drive down wages. Greece, another country revealed blow by punishing blow to be poorer than it thought, might envy the stabilising influence of the UK’s falling pound. Perhaps — but Greece’s problems run far deeper than having too rigid a currency, the Financial Times reported. Harder to believe is that underneath all this bargaining is an economy in any shape to grow rapidly any time soon.