Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he wants to see Britain’s minimum wage rise by more than inflation, as the government seeks to spread the benefits of an improving economy and rebuild support before next year’s election, Bloomberg News reported. “Because we’re fixing the economy, because we’re working through our plan, I believe that Britain can afford an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage,” Osborne said in a BBC television interview yesterday.

An angular glass building on the waterfront here used to be the headquarters of a banking giant with operations in Europe, North America and the Middle East, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. Now, it houses a shadow of that behemoth — a small bank doing business only in Iceland and lacking both the trading culture and ambitions of its failed predecessor. The metamorphosis is a result of one of the biggest bank crashes any country has ever had. The risk in Iceland’s financial system has dissipated, but the basic businesses of banking have shrunk as well.

Less than two years ago, Bankia looked like a Spanish version of Lehman Brothers: a big, troubled institution whose collapse threatened to take down a country’s financial system, The International New York Times reported. Only after a government takeover of Bankia, at the time one of Spain’s biggest mortgage lenders, and an international bailout of the Spanish banking system did the crisis subside.

Punch Taverns Plc, the U.K. pub operator that’s seeking to restructure about 2.3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) of bonds, asked noteholders to accept the final terms of a debt deal, saying the alternative is default, Bloomberg News reported. The offer, which modifies proposals published Dec. 9, will reduce the company’s borrowings by canceling some notes in return for cash payments or issues of new securities to bondholders, it said in a statement. The changes include increased interest rates on some of its debt, modified repayments on other parts and strengthened covenants.

A consortium backed by French giant, Bouygues, looks poised to take over troubled building group, Siac, after the original preferred bidder for the company, businessman Brian Harvey, decided against going ahead with an offer, the Irish Times reported. The High Court appointed Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton as examiner to Siac Construction and eight related companies late last year, giving them protection from creditors, including three banks owed €42 million.

Bailed-out euro-area countries are facing “painful” challenges with worse-than-anticipated consequences of economic adjustment, including high unemployment and slow growth, central banks and finance ministries said, Bloomberg News reported. Officials and ministers from Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus, in responses to European Union lawmaker questions published today, described how their countries’ emergency aid had been followed by social hardship and continuing economic difficulties.

Prokon Regenerative Energien GmbH, a German clean-power developer, collected 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion) from investors seeking to profit from the booming wind industry. It may now have to file for protection from creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Prokon will be forced to file for insolvency this month if it doesn’t get agreement from almost all investors to delay withdrawals from profit-participation certificates, it said in a statement. The company has sold certificates to more than 75,000 investors, promising returns of 6 percent.

Codere SA, the Spanish gaming company in talks to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of debt, won’t make an interest payment on its bonds, according to a filing, BloombergBusinessweek reported. The company had 30 days grace period to make a 31 million-euro interest payment on its 8.25 percent bonds initially due Dec. 15. A default on the 760 million euros of bonds may give holders the right to demand immediate repayment. Codere continues negotiations with bondholders to restructure its debt, the Madrid-based company said in the statement.

Spain’s property sector is still struggling to recover from a half-decade downturn, according to figures showing that home sales dropped by 16 per cent in November compared with the same month in 2012, the Irish Times reported. Just under 22,000 homes were sold during that month, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported yesterday, the second-biggest year-on-year dip since the economic crisis started to bite in 2008. It was also 4.1 per cent fewer homes than the previous month.

Iceland is losing patience with creditors in its failed banks as the government considers forcing through bankruptcy proceedings to help it exit capital control in place since 2008, Bloomberg News reported. “The Bankruptcy Act doesn’t anticipate that attempts to seek composition last forever,” Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson said in a Jan. 10 interview in Reykjavik.