Restructuring specialist Hilco is the frontrunner in the battle to save music retailer HMV from administration, British media reported on Sunday. Hilco, which bought HMV Canada in 2011 and salvaged home goods firm Habitat, is favoured by an industry consortium, said the Sunday Times. The paper said music labels and film studios, such as Universal, Warner, Sony, and 20th Century Fox were preparing a rescue package, keen to keep the 92-year-old retailer alive. Options for the suppliers include cutting the prices of discs and giving the retailer generous credit terms, it said.

Video game company Atari SA said it filed for bankruptcy protection in Paris and New York on Monday after it failed to find a successor to main shareholder and sole lender BlueBay as it wrestles with tough market conditions, Reuters reported. The U.S. operations plan, in addition, to separate from their French parent to seek independent capital to grow in digital and mobile games, Atari Inc said in a statement. The U.S.

More companies are expected to default on their debt this year, with UK retailers deemed the most vulnerable, according to new research, the Financial Times reported. A survey of the restructuring industry – published just days after HMV and Blockbuster became the latest high-street chains to collapse – indicates that the retail sector will be no more resilient in coming months.

Hungary wants to impose a punitive 35% capital gains tax on assets its nationals deposited in Switzerland, but it may have a hard time getting information out of the Alpine country, according to a French-based consultancy, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. The Hungarian government allowed assets to be repatriated under benign conditions of a 10% capital gains tax rate over the past two years ending Dec. 31, 2012, which it referred to as a tax amnesty. The 35% rate it now plans to impose, and apply retroactively, would in comparison count as a penal tax rate.

Euro zone finance ministers late last night called for an examination of whether the maturity of Ireland’s rescue loans from the EFSF temporary bailout fund should be extended, the Irish Times reported. The move came ahead of a meeting today of all 27 EU ministers at which Michael Noonan will ask for a similar examination of the maturity of loans form the European Financial Stability Mechanism, a separate fund run by the European Commission.

The worst of the economic slowdown in central and eastern Europe may be over, with growth set for a modest pick-up in 2013, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Financial Times reported.The multilateral lender to former communist eastern Europe says growth in its 34 countries of operation, including four in north Africa to which it extended its mandate last year, dropped from 4.6 per cent in 2011 to 2.6 per cent in 2012. But the bank’s latest quarterly forecast is for growth to rise moderately to 3.1 per cent this year.

Investigators probing alleged fraud at the failed Anglo Irish Bank since early 2009 asked on Thursday for another three years to conclude their case and were told by a Dublin High Court judge to wrap it up in the next year, Reuters reported. The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) and the police are investigating events leading up to the collapse of scandal-hit Anglo Irish Bank and have so far brought charges forward in two of the five strands to their case.

Spanish and Irish funding costs continued to ease at debt auctions Thursday, with investors increasingly confident that both euro-zone countries may be over the worst of their financial problems, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain sold its maximum targeted €4.5 billion ($5.98 billion) worth of bonds amid signs that it doesn't currently need financial support offered by the European Central Bank to meet its funding needs.

Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that the problem of high indebtedness is not limited to the crisis-hit eurozone and that the situation in Britain and the US is worse, The Telegraph reported. Speaking in Parliament, Mr Schaeuble also said he was worried by the policies pledged by the recently elected government in Japan, which has vowed a big increase in spending to bolster the econony, AFP reported. "Britain has a higher state debt than the eurozone average and I don't even want to mention the United States of America," Schaeuble said.

Game, the retailer bought out of administration by investment firm OpCapita, is interested in acquiring up to 45 HMV stores, the Financial Times reported. Martyn Gibbs, chief executive of Game, said the chain’s management had approached Deloitte, administrator to HMV, for more information, but would not confirm the number of stores in which the video game retailer could be interested. But people familiar with the situation said there were 40-45 UK locations where HMV was present, but Game was not.