Italian spirits group Davide Campari led by its new Chief Executive Simon Hunt, said on Thursday it needed to take some "tough decisions, such as organizational restructuring" to ensure the group's return to financial health, Reuters reported. Italian daily MF reported on Thursday that the group was working to cut its workforce by 10%, meaning around 500 people. Asked for a comment, Campari said in an emailed statement that it needed a more efficient resource allocation, as changes in top-line performance and existing infrastructure investments had impacted profitability.

Esprit has flagged another annual loss, citing the insolvency of its European and US subsidiaries and an adverse operating environment, InsideRetail.asia reported. The Hong Kong-listed fashion company expects an unaudited net loss of HK$1.172 billion (US$150 million) for the year ended December 31, compared to a loss of HK$2.339 billion in the prior year. The company also expects a 73 per cent drop in revenue and 76 per cent decrease in gross profit for the year.

More than half of councils responsible for special educational needs provision will not be able to balance their books when a “statutory override” ends next year, a survey has suggested, the Irish News reported. Councils are able to keep high needs deficits – where the cost of providing support outstrips the special educational needs and disabilities budgets available to councils – off their main revenue accounts.

The car loan mis-selling scandal risks blowing a £5.5bn black hole in the public finances, posing a fresh challenge for Rachel Reeves as she scrambles to balance Britain’s books, The Telegraph reported. Treasury officials have warned the Chancellor that a string of major firms could use compensation payments to people who were mis-sold loans to legally cut their corporate tax bills – reducing revenue for the Treasury at a time when she is battling to meet her fiscal targets.

Mastercard's agreement to settle a landmark lawsuit brought on behalf of British consumers drew criticism on Wednesday, in a dispute that could deter funders from involvement in Britain's burgeoning class action sector, Reuters reported. The global payments processor in December announced an agreement to settle long-running litigation over card fees for 200 million pounds, far below the 10 billion-pound ($12.6 billion) valuation previously put on the lawsuit.

A solicitor’s secretary has won around €7,000 for unpaid wages and statutory redundancy after her employer became insolvent and a plan to have her transfer to another firm fell through, The Irish Times reported. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) made orders against David Gaffney, trading as Gaffney Solicitors, on foot of complaints under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 by Leona Erangey in a decision published on Wednesday.

Cash-strapped Thames Water bought itself some more time to reorganize its debts after a London judge approved an emergency loan worth as much as £3 billion ($3.8 billion), Bloomberg News reported. The plan will see the money come from a number of Thames’ existing senior creditors, including investment firms Elliott Management, Silver Point and Pimco. The loan comes weeks before Thames, the UK’s largest water and sewer company, was due to run out of cash and gives some much needed breathing space for it to negotiate a major restructuring with its lenders.

Company insolvencies have surged to a 16-year high as bosses give up ahead of Rachel Reeves’s tax raid, official figures show, The Telegraph reported. More businesses went under last month than in any January since the financial crisis. The number of corporate insolvencies jumped by 10.7pc year-on-year to hit 1,971, which means nearly 500 companies went bust every week. The monthly total was up by 6.5pc compared to December and was the highest January total since 2009, when the economy was reeling from the credit crunch.

U.K. annual inflation in January reached its highest level since March last year, complicating the picture for the Bank of England after it said it would cut interest rates gradually amid a weak outlook for economic growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 3.0% higher in January than a year earlier, up from 2.5% in December, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday.