Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India’s biggest sport-utility vehicle manufacturer, is interested in buying at least parts of bankrupt Swedish carmaker Saab Automobile, two people familiar with the situation said, Bloomberg reported. Mahindra, based in Mumbai, is in the process of trying to set up meetings with the two court-appointed administrators who are overseeing Saab’s bankruptcy to possibly buy parts of the carmaker or the whole company, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans are private.

Prime Minister Mario Monti yesterday presented in broad terms his government's master plan for Italy, which he called "Grow Italy," the New York Times reported today. Devised to spur growth in a country that has seen little of it in the past 15 years, the proposals would include liberalizing Italy's closed professions and guilds, encouraging competitiveness and modernizing the nation's outdated infrastructure. The government will also tackle labor reform, a thorny issue for labor unions as well as for some political parties that support Monti's government.

D2 Jeans, a small British clothing retailer, has entered into administration, highlighting the plight of many of the country's fashion companies as they battle against a stagnant economy, Reuters reported yesterday. Business restructuring company BDO LLP said yesterday that its partners James Stephen and David Hill had been appointed as the administrators for D2 Jeans and added that 200 jobs would be eliminated.

Even after the European Central Bank doled out nearly half a trillion euros of loans to cash-strapped banks last week, fears about potential financial problems are still stalking the sector. One big reason: concerns about collateral, according to today's Wall Street Journal. The only way European banks can now convince anyone - institutional investors, fellow banks or the ECB - to lend them money is if they pledge high-quality assets as collateral.

Financial market pressure on Italy eased temporarily on Wednesday, with borrowing rates on some government-issued debt dropping by half. But the political pressure on the government of Prime Minister Mario Monti remained high — and was rising, the New York Times reported Wednesday. Last week, Mr. Monti won final approval of a $40 billion spending package that includes tax increases and a pension change aimed at eliminating Italy's budget deficit by 2013.

The trustee for the MF Global Inc. brokerage said he's disputing as much as $700 million in customer assets with the administrators of a U.K. affiliate, Business Week reported Wednesday. Trustee James Giddens, who has said he's trying to retrieve U.S. commodity customers' assets from foreign affiliates, told the administrators the funds were held for customers' foreign trades and should be returned, he said in a statement. The administrators said the assets didn't fit the classification of segregated funds under U.K. law, he said. The assets he's fighting for in the U.K.

The "bleak" financial situation faced by the younger generation has been laid bare, as official figures showed that more people aged between 25 and 34 are turning to a type of insolvency known as a debt relief order (DRO) than any other age group, the Sunday Sun reported today. One in four people who have taken out DROs in England and Wales since they were introduced fall into this age category, according to the Insolvency Service, which has launched a Dealing With Your Debt campaign encouraging people to seek help early.

As the euro-zone debt crisis intensified in recent months, at least two global banks took steps to install back-up technology systems that could handle trades in old European currencies like drachmas, escudos and lire, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. That, the banks quickly found, is not so easy in a financial world that is trying to both exhibit confidence in the ailing euro and—just in case—plan for its possible demise.

U.K. retailer La Senza has said that it intends to enter administration, according to BBC News on Friday. The lingerie chain blamed "trading conditions" and "the overall macro environment" for its decision. An administrator will now be chosen within 10 days, in accordance with the U.K. Insolvency Act. The retailer, which has some 2,600 U.K. staff at 146 stores and 18 concessions, said that it continued to trade as normal, and there have been no unplanned redundancies or store closures.

Legal authorities unwinding the brokerage operations of MF Global Holdings Ltd. in the U.S. and U.K. could be heading for a legal clash over $600 million to $700 million in customer money that both sides consider to be their responsibility, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. James Giddens, the U.S. trustee unwinding MF Global's domestic brokerage unit, on Friday disputed the stance of KPMG, which is unwinding MF Global's London-based arm, over the legal classification of the money.