The “good” bank created after the bailout of the Portuguese lender Banco Espírito Santo last month was dealt a setback on Saturday when the three-person management team selected to turn around its business abruptly resigned, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

Panic has hit the British market over the uncertainty around the upcoming Scottish referendum with investors pulling out $27 billion out of UK financial assets in August — the biggest capital outflow since the Lehman crisis in 2008, The Times of India reported. The London-based consultancy CrossBorder Capital has confirmed the biggest drain of financial assets since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. On Thursday, Scotland will vote in the historic referendum to decide whether it would continue to be part of the United Kingdom or become an independent country.

Receivers have taken control of the HCJV, a property company linked to the Caulfield McCarthy retail group, one of the State’s biggest SuperValu franchisees with stores and shopping centres in eight locations, the Irish Times reported. Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) has appointed Sean McNamara of Smith & Williamson accountants to take control of seven of the properties on foot of unpaid loans totalling more than €80 million, owed by HCJV and several of its subsidiaries, which are also in receivership.

The board of Germany's department store chain Karstadt is meeting to agree on a rescue plan for the loss-making retailer. About 17,000 employees are hoping the group's new owner will turn around their fortunes, Deutsche Welle reported. For the first time since taking over Karstadt Group in August, Austrian billionaire investor Rene Benko will chair a meeting of the chain's supervisory board. The main item on the meeting's agenda is purportedly a restructuring blueprint drafted by interim chief executive Miguel Müllenbach.

Banco Espírito Santo secretly lent money to its controlling shareholder for two years, documents have revealed – raising fresh questions over the Bank of Portugal’s supervision of a lender that went on to suffer one of Europe’s largest financial collapses, the Financial Times reported. BES, then Portugal’s largest listed bank, routed undeclared loans to Espírito Santo International (ESI) – then indirectly its 25 per cent shareholder – through Panama, the documents show. BES did not declare the loans to ESI in its accounts at the time.

An application by property developer Sean Dunne to end his US bankruptcy case will be heard by a Connecticut judge at trial in December, the Irish Times reported. Judge Alan Shiff set the trial date for December 3rd in a court filing yesterday. He had previous given parties until today to file objections to Mr Dunne’s bid not to seek a discharge from bankruptcy in the US in favour of proceeding with a single bankruptcy case in Ireland.

Ireland has won German backing to refinance part of its bailout loans, according to Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin, the Irish Times reported. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Mr Howlin said the German parliament had set a date to ratify Ireland’s request to refinance its bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Government is seeking to repay up to €18 billion of its €22.5 billion loan from the IMF early, in a move that could save the Irish exchequer up to €400 million a year.

France announced on Wednesday it was breaking the latest in a long line of promises to European Union partners to cut its public deficit, conceding it now would take until 2017 to bring its finances in line with EU rules, Reuters reported. The statement by Finance Minister Michel Sapin follows weeks of hints by Paris that weakness in the euro zone's second-largest economy would prevent it bringing the deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of output next year as promised.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney can’t get away from the housing market, Bloomberg News reported. As he argues there is no immediate need to raise interest rates, central to his case is the mountain of debt financing property. Home loans account for almost 90 percent of the 1.45 trillion pounds ($2.3 trillion) owed by U.K. households. In London, where the average home costs 500,000 pounds, first-time buyers are paying almost nine times their annual income to get onto the housing ladder.

Scotland's two biggest banks are joining a growing chorus of businesses warning about the impact of the breakup of the U.K.'s more than 300 year-old union, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lloyds Banking Group PLC said Wednesday it would move the bank's legal headquarters to London from Edinburgh in the event of a "Yes" vote for Scottish independence on Sept. 18. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC will make a similar announcement Thursday morning, according to a person close to the bank.