A New York private-equity group, KPS Capital Partners LP, agreed to buy the Irish and U.K. operations of Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the historic ceramics-and-crystal maker that was placed in a form of bankruptcy in January, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal was announced by accounting firm Deloitte LLP, which has been trying to sell the company since it was placed in administration Jan. 5 after years of heavy losses under its former chairman and major shareholder, Irish businessman Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

The board of General Motors' German Opel subsidiary met on Friday to agree a restructuring plan that could cost thousands of jobs and open the way to state support, Reuters reported. The meeting comes a day after thousands of workers protested in Ruesselsheim, calling for an independent Opel after 80 years as a unit of GM. It is the first carmaker in Europe to ask for government support to survive.

European Union governments agreed Thursday to raise the coverage level for bank deposits to €50,000 ($63,565) from the end of June and to €100,000 from the end of 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision aims to "help restore confidence in the banking sector by strengthening depositor protection," said the Council of the European Union, the EU institution where governments are represented. The EU had set a previous minimum coverage level of €20,000.

A group of multilateral lenders on Friday unveiled a lending package of up to €24.5 billion ($31 billion) to help central and eastern Europe’s battered banking systems weather the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, which announced the package in London, hope the move will encourage the international banking groups that control most of the region’s banks to support their subsidiaries.

Hayman Advisors LP, the firm that earned $500 million betting on the U.S. subprime mortgage-market collapse, says Europe’s monetary union is about to fall apart, Bloomberg reported. Richard Howard, a managing director for global markets at Dallas-based Hayman, said Germany may opt to shore up its own economy, Europe’s biggest, rather than bail out fellow euro nations such as Austria, Italy and Spain as their banks sag under the weight of bad debts. That might lead to defaults and compel Germany to renounce the euro, he said.

Germany is the world's leading exporter and fourth-biggest economy, but during the global financial meltdown, it has also been among the most tightfisted. For months, German leaders have warned that spending and lending huge sums to fend off recession--such as the United States' $787 billion stimulus package--will backfire in the long run. In recent days, however, German officials have had a swift change of heart, according to a Washington Post analysis.

The EU is falling short of the US response to the economic crisis because governments have failed to work closely enough, the economic and monetary affairs commissioner has warned. “I really think that the degree of co-ordination could be seriously improved,” Joaquín Almunia said in an interview with the Financial Times. His comments emphasise fears Europe has sown the seeds of a slow recovery and will lag behind the US when the recession ends. There was too little co-ordination between capitals when economic stimulus packages were drawn up, Mr Almunia said.

European Union officials are concerned that the pound’s slide to a record low against the euro could destabilize the British economy, according to a document prepared last month by European Commission and EU finance ministry officials. The pound’s “very rapid” drop “raises questions about the financial stability of the British economy,” said the document, which was prepared ahead of the Feb. 14 Group of Seven meeting in Rome and obtained by Bloomberg News. The currency’s weakness “is a source of concern for the euro area.” The report contradicts Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s argument on Feb.

Irish police and fraud investigators raided the central Dublin offices of Anglo Irish Bank Corp. Tuesday, signaling an intensifying inquiry into the now-nationalized bank and more woes for Ireland's financial sector, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shares in Irish banks fell sharply Tuesday after about two dozen officials, including officers from the Irish police force's fraud bureau, entered the bank's offices at about 10 a.m. local time to search for computers and documents.

Japan's exports nearly halved in January from a year earlier, with record slides in shipments to the United States, Europe and the rest of Asia pointing to a deepening recession across much of the world, Reuters reported. Japanese car exports fell by two-thirds from a year earlier, accelerating from a 45 percent annual decline seen in December, as the value of overall exports hit a 10-year low. "We don't see any signs of a pick-up in the Japanese economy in the near term. The economy will gradually worsen further," said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.