Gambling company Codere SA said it has until early Wednesday to secure a debt restructuring agreement and avoid bankruptcy, having agreed with creditors on a two-day extension to the deadline, The Wall Street Journal reported. The previous deadline, agreed with creditors holding around €1 billion ($1.4 billion) worth of debt, expired at the weekend, but a Codere spokesman said Sunday that talks were ongoing. Codere has been in a so-called preliminary bankruptcy since earlier this year, following complex negotiations with the bondholders and other creditors.

A number of lenders to struggling French retailer Vivarte have submitted proposals to restructure the company's 2.8 billion euro ($3.85 billion) debt, banking sources said on Monday, Reuters reported. The plan would lead to an injection of fresh cash and wipe out a portion of existing debt in return for equity, the sources said. Vivarte entered into a four-month conciliation process with its lenders in March to negotiate a way forward after the borrower failed to get an agreement from a majority of its lenders to suspend loan covenant tests.

European banks are being urged to boost their ability to withstand losses before the conclusion of a stress test that is drawing criticism for its design, Bloomberg News reported. Axel Weber, the chairman of Zurich-based UBS AG and a former head of Germany’s Bundesbank, said yesterday that stress-testing banks that have depleted capital is akin to expecting a patient recovering from a heart attack to pass a rigorous physical exam. Moody’s Analytics Inc. said last week that the tests aren’t internally consistent.

In euro zone countries most damaged by the long financial crisis, small and medium-size businesses are struggling to get the loans that would help them rebuild. Such businesses typically represent two-thirds of all jobs in those countries, so a full-fledged economic recovery is unlikely to take hold as long as such lending remains tight, the International New York Times reported. “It’s demotivating and almost impossible for an entrepreneur to work with these conditions,” Portuguese business owner Lúcio Machado said.

Britain's Co-operative Bank said on Saturday it had completed a 400 million pound ($674 million) fundraising to bolster its capital position, Reuters reported. The capital raise, which was launched on Friday, is subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting that will be held in due course, the bank said in a statement.

The debt written off by Europe’s companies due to late payment or non-payment of bills has swelled to €360bn despite the pick-up in economic activity in the region, the Financial Times reported. “The late payment consequences for businesses pose a real threat to Europe’s competitiveness and social wellbeing,” said Lars Wollung, president of Intrum Justitia, a credit management group.

The war on those stashing undisclosed money offshore intensified this week when 47 countries, including the Group of 20 and some prominent tax havens, sealed a pact that will shake up the sharing of tax information, The Economist reported. Under the present system, countries have to file requests with each other for data on suspected cheats. Even reasonable enquiries are often rejected as “fishing expeditions”. In future the signatories—and dozens of others that will be pressed into joining later—will automatically exchange information once a year.

Finnish Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen was ousted as Social Democratic leader yesterday as her party turned to a trade union leader advocating more stimulus to promote growth in the northernmost euro member, Bloomberg News reported. Antti Rinne, head of the trade union Pro, won the backing of 257 party members against Urpilainen’s 243 at a congress yesterday in Seinaejoki, northwest of Helsinki. Urpilainen said she will step down as finance minister and leave the government. “Social democrats in Finland and in Europe must again target full employment,” Rinne, 51, said in a speech today.

Permanent TSB has in recent days invited corporate advisers to pitch to sell two of its loan books with a face value of €2.5 billion. It has invited tenders from accounting firms and corporate advisers to sell its €2.1 billion Irish commercial real estate (CRE) book and its €465 million Springboard Mortgages subprime portfolio, the Irish Times reported. In March, State-owned Permanent TSB said its strategy was to sell the two businesses either this year or in early 2015.

After decades of building a global investment bank, Barclays is sounding a retreat, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The British bank announced on Thursday plans to take an ax to its investment banking business — which has major operations in New York as well as London and Asia — by slashing half of its capital and more than a quarter of its work force, or 7,000 jobs. Instead, Barclays will focus on four core areas: retail and corporate banking, primarily in Britain; credit cards; banking in Africa; and, to a lesser extent, investment banking.