Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan said today that he expects there will be repossessions by Irish banks of buy-to-let properties that are in arrears with their mortgages but hopes there will be “very few” of owner-occupied family homes, the Irish Times reported. Mr Honohan also expressed his preference for split mortgages - whereby part of the loan is warehoused for a period of time without repayments being made - over interest-only repayment solutions as the country seeks to tackle the crisis of home loan arrears that has built up in the banking system.

German solar group Conergy has filed for insolvency, putting about 800 jobs at risk and becoming the latest casualty in an industry battered by overcapacity, plunging prices and a trade dispute between Europe and China, Climate Spectator reported. Once Europe's largest solar company, Conergy has been fighting for months to secure fresh investment and a deal with its creditors, and earlier this week it had looked close to an agreement.

Profits at the insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor have halved because fewer UK companies are going bust, The Guardian reported. The firm, which has been administrator to indebted groups from Port Vale FC to Rotherham-based United Carpets, reported that pre-tax profits were down £2.4m for the year until the end of April, compared with £5.5m the previous year. Revenues fell by more than 10% to £51m. In a statement the board blamed the profit fall on a 10% decline in insolvency cases, which it said had reached historic lows compared to previous recessions.

Portugal's embattled prime minister said he had reached an understanding to keep his government from collapsing, but only after four days of political tremors highlighted the biggest flaw in Europe's strategy for reviving crisis-hit euro members: It isn't working, The Wall Street Journal reported. Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said he had received assurances Thursday of continued backing of the Democratic and Social Center Party, the junior partner in his center-right coalition, despite the resignation of its leader, Paulo Portas, as foreign minister. Mr.

Austrian drug store chain Dayli filed for court-supervised restructuring on Thursday, acknowledging it had failed to deliver on its concept for neighbourhood stores and saying nearly 3,500 jobs were at risk, Reuters reported. The filing in Linz poses a fresh test of whether Austria's strong safety net that gives it the European Union's lowest jobless rate can handle a wave of corporate failures, including that of Alpine, the country's second-biggest construction group.

Upmarket British designer fashion chain Nicole Farhi has gone into administration, a form of bankruptcy in the U.K., a business restructuring firm said Wednesday. Zolfo Cooper, a company providing restructuring services, said it is in talks to sell the brand, one of Britain's best-known luxury clothing chains and a regular at London Fashion Week, the Associated Press reported. "As with many other fashion retailers, the decline in high street spend coupled with rising costs has led to increased financial pressures on the business," said Peter Saville, a partner at Zolfo Cooper.

French water company Saur is set to be taken over by its creditors later this month after securing a restructuring deal with all its stakeholders that will see its burdensome debt pile cut in half. The state-backed company, which competes with France’s Veolia Environnement and Suez Environnement, has negotiated a deal where its more than 60 bank lenders will take ownership in return for writing off much of the debt, the Financial Times reported. The group had been struggling with €1.8bn worth of debt stemming from a 2007 leveraged buyout, which will come down to €900m.

A Spanish government investigation into the public offering of a struggling bank that saddled investors with huge losses questions the independence of the Spanish unit of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. and says that auditing work it did may have been faulty. The findings, part of a preliminary report by the Spanish Accounting and Audit Institute on the auditing of Spanish lender Bankia SA ahead of its ill-fated €3 billion ($3.92 billion) IPO two summers ago, could result in sanctions and tens of millions of euros in fines for Deloitte, the report says.

Bank of England policymakers said on Tuesday they would press ahead quickly with a new curb on banks' risk exposure and would not be deflected by industry lobbying against the plan, Reuters reported. Paul Tucker, the central bank's deputy governor for financial stability, told British lawmakers that the new rule, which would require UK banks to meet a limit on lending as a proportion of their capital, should be introduced now. Ratcheting up the pressure on banks, Tucker said lobbying was "completely unacceptable", pointless and regulators would not be deflected "one iota" from their tasks.

France aims to make budget savings of around €28 billion over the next two years to restore public finances to order, finance minister Pierre Moscovici said Tuesday, the Irish Times reported. The government is struggling to find the right balance between belt-tightening and tax increases as it seeks to rein in the public deficit without hitting the already faltering economy. Speaking ahead of a parliamentary debate on next year’s budget, Mr Moscovici said that the government wanted savings of €14 billion in 2014.