The former owner of Thames Water has expanded its sprawling network of UK assets by taking control of London City Airport, The Telegraph reported. Australian investment giant Macquarie is to acquire a further 50pc stake in the capital’s business travel hub, just four months after acquiring an initial 25pc. While the value of the London City deal was not disclosed, it is believed to be worth billions of pounds and comes after Macquarie announced plans last year to invest £20bn in the UK.

Bankruptcies continued to decline in September, according to Statistics Netherlands, the NL Times reported. A total of 276 companies went bankrupt last month, 97 fewer than in September of the previous year, a 26 percent drop. Compared with August, the number of bankruptcies decreased by 1 percent. In September, the bankruptcy rate, measuring the number of bankruptcies per 100,000 companies, stood at 7.5. This compares with 10.3 per 100,000 companies a year earlier.

Swiss private bank Julius Baer is facing significant credit losses after financing real estate projects linked to Germany's now-insolvent Degag Group, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Monday. The bank has filed claims for 48 million euros ($55.74 million), which exceeds its 2023 profit in Germany, the paper said, citing a preliminary report to the insolvency administrator. The matter is a blow for Julius Baer, which last year reported losses of 586 million Swiss francs on loans to collapsed property company Signa.

Quantuma’s Andrew Watling and Duncan Beat, the joint liquidators of La Perla, which traded as Global Management (UK) Limited, have finalised the sale of the lingerie business and its Italian factory to American billionaire businessman Peter Kern, who is the former CEO of Expedia travel group, Business & Accountancy Daily reported. The business first faced problems in 2023 when HMRC issued a winding up order due to a £2.8m unpaid tax bill forcing the business to the wall.

Swiss authorities' 2023 decision to write off 16.5 billion Swiss francs ($20.53 billion) in Credit Suisse bonds was unlawful, a court said on Tuesday, raising fresh questions about how the bank's rescue and subsequent takeover by UBS was handled, Reuters reported. The March 2023 decision by market regulator FINMA to wipe out Credit Suisse's Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds during the state-engineered takeover by its old rival UBS triggered an investor backlash and legal challenges. In a partial decision, the court said the 2023 AT1 bond write-off lacked a legal basis.

The U.K.’s labor market loosened a little in the three months through August, with unemployment creeping up and wage growth slowing, as firms continued to hold back from hiring, the Wall Street Journal reported. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.8%, from 4.7% in the three months through July, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. The jobless rate, which has slowly risen from a low of 4.0% in the summer of 2024, was higher than consensus expectations from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal that it would stay the same.

French President Emmanuel Macron is ready to call timeout on his signature pension overhaul to save what remains of his presidency, the Wall Street Journal reported. Macron’s newly reappointed prime minister on Tuesday proposed suspending increases in France’s retirement age until after the next presidential election in 2027, a bid to calm a political storm that threatens to take down France’s fourth government in less than a year.

Vijay Mallya, wanted in India to face trial on fraud and money laundering charges, has discontinued an application to annul a UK bankruptcy order ahead of a planned hearing in London on Monday, IndiaToday.com reported. It means the "Trustee in Bankruptcy" can continue to pursue assets to help a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) realise the repayment of an estimated judgment debt of around 1.05 billion pounds owed by the 69-year-old's now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.