Distressed debt investors are circling General Healthcare Group, in expectation that the UK’s largest private hospital operator by revenue will be forced to restructure its heavily indebted financial set-up, the Financial Times reported. GHG operates 70 hospitals and treatment centres across the country and employs 15,000 people. But the company was straddled with £1.9bn of gross debt in the 2006 acquisition by Netcare, the South African healthcare group; Apax Partners, the private equity investor; and two property investors.

France and eight other euro-zone countries suffered ratings downgrades on their sovereign debt Friday, sparking renewed global worries over Europe's ability to bail itself out of financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services stripped triple-A ratings from France and Austria and downgraded seven others, including Spain, Italy and Portugal. It retained the triple-A rating on Europe's No. 1 economy, Germany.

Greece will resume talks with its private-sector creditors next week on a massive debt restructuring plan, with an aim to reach the outlines of a deal in time for a Feb. 23 meeting of euro-zone finance ministers, The Wall Street Journal reported. In remarks to fellow socialist party members, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos insisted the talks will resume in the coming days despite breaking down Friday amid disagreements over the future interest rate Greece will pay.

Britain will encourage greater worker ownership in companies to counter the "crony capitalism" that contributed to the 2007/8 financial crisis and tipped the country into recession, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said on Monday, Reuters reported. An "unrestrained economic elite" driven by short-termism and recklessness had brought the economy to the edge and had to be restrained by a more responsible capitalism, Clegg said in extracts of a speech released in advance by his office.

The European Central Bank said on Thursday there were “tentative” signs of economic stabilisation in the eurozone as successful Spanish and Italian government bond auctions also pointed to at least a temporary easing of the region’s debt crisis, the Financial Times reported. Although Mario Draghi, ECB president, tempered his cautiously optimistic tone by saying that financial market tensions continued to hit eurozone economic activity, markets reacted positively to his comments and the bond auctions. The euro gained almost 1 per cent against the US dollar.

Talks between Greece and its private sector creditors over a debt restructuring plan are "on track," a senior finance ministry official said Thursday, with the outlines of a final deal expected to be reached by late next week, Dow Jones reported. "We are completely on track. Exploiting the momentum, by the end of the next week we could have the final outline for a deal with the private sector," the official said.

Seat Pagine Gialle SpA (PG), Italy’s largest phone-book publisher, may extend a proposal to restructure its debt to senior bondholders, two people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg reported. The senior noteholders, who own about 750 million euros ($957 million) of Seat Pagine bonds, may be involved to broaden approval for the plan and avoid possible legal challenges from them, the people said, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.

ICE Futures Europe has suspended the membership of London-based emissions brokers CarbonDesk Limited until further notice, the exchange said, after the firm said it could no longer pay creditors and named administrators. Last November CarbonDesk Group PLC said in a statement that its subsidiary had entered into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) as it no longer had enough cash to pay its debts, and it named administrators to take over management. A CVA enables a company to reach an agreement with its creditors on the repayment of outstanding debts over a period of time.

Angela Merkel has given effusive praise for the economic reforms introduced by Italy’s new government of technocrats, marking a clear seal of approval from the German government – in stark contrast to its long-standing doubts about the previous Italian administration, the Financial Times reported. Speaking after her first bilateral summit with Mario Monti, who succeeded Silvio Berlusconi as Italian prime minister in November, the German chancellor lauded the “extraordinarily important and remarkable measures” already taken by his technocratic administration.

Banks are hoarding the European Central Bank’s record 489 billion-euro ($625 billion) injection into the banking system, thwarting attempts by policy makers to avert a credit crunch in the region, Bloomberg reported. Almost all of the money loaned to 523 euro-area lenders last month wound up back on deposit at the Frankfurt-based central bank instead of pouring into the financial system, ECB data show. Banks will use most of the three-year loans to meet their refinancing needs for this year and next, analysts at Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc estimate.