United Kingdom

Scottish company insolvencies have declined by 16% since last year, but experts say overall volumes will remain high for some time to come, Scottish Financial News reported. There were a total of 73 company insolvencies registered in Scotland in September 2024, comprised of 48 CVLs, 18 compulsory liquidations and seven administrations. There were no CVAs or receivership appointments. Historically, compulsory liquidations were the most common type of company insolvency in Scotland. However, since April 2020, numbers of CVLs have remained higher than numbers of compulsory liquidations.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is considering raising taxes levied on entrepreneurs when they sell their businesses, as part of her push to raise as much as £40 billion ($52 billion) to balance Britain’s budget, Bloomberg News reported. Britain’s finance minister is looking at cutting a capital gains tax easement known as business asset disposal relief in her spending plan on Oct. 30. The policy allows entrepreneurs to pay a reduced tax of 10% on profits they make from the sale of their companies, rather than the standard 20% levy for higher-rate taxpayers.

Argentina lost a bid at the U.K. Supreme Court to hear its appeal on a ruling that would force the South American nation to pay $1.5 billion in damages to holders of the country’s growth-linked bonds, Bloomberg News reported. In an order signed Monday, the U.K.’s top court refused to hear an appeal over payments to hedge funds including Palladian Partners LP. The holders of those notes argued the losses were a result of a change by a previous Argentine government in how it calculated gross domestic product.

Inflation in the U.K. fell to below the Bank of England’s 2% target in September for the first time in more than three years, boosting the chance of an interest-rate cut next month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 1.7% higher in September than the same month of last year, easing from the 2.2% rate of inflation in August, and reaching the lowest level since April 2021, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The pound fell 0.5% against the dollar after the data release.

A local authority will run out of money before the end of the year without government help, its finance chief has said. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council will have to make cuts and savings of more than 10% of its budget to avoid bankruptcy, a BBC investigation has found. Although funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is not included in the day-to-day budget, it is the council's biggest financial concern. Deputy leader Mike Cox told the BBC that without help the authority would "run out of cash".

777 Partners, the investment firm that had come close to purchasing Everton, has collapsed. The company’s football assets have all been put up for sale, the Liverpool Echo reported. The Miami-based firm, who had agreed a deal with Blues owner Farhad Moshiri to acquire the club in September 2023 but were unable to complete, have been beset by legal and financial issues that have unraveled in recent months, with the firm’s UK operations to be liquidated following a winding-up order in the High Court.

Some of the biggest Thames Water bondholders have signed non-disclosure agreements to access sensitive information about the firm as debt talks progress. That also means they can no longer trade the company’s bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The step is key to pushing forward discussions with Britain’s largest water and sewage company about a cash injection to keep operations running. The bondholders that signed the NDA form a steering committee that represents the interests of a creditor group led by Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

More than one in ten British pubs are at imminent risk of closure, with 11% of the UK’s pubs classed as technically insolvent and facing maximum credit risk, according to analysis by accountancy firm Price Bailey, Harpers.co.uk reported. Price Bailey reviewed the credit risk scores and balance sheets of all 37,961 pubs and bars across the UK. It found that 7,445 establishments (20% of the total) have negative net assets, meaning they are technically insolvent. Among these, 4,310 pubs are categorised as having a Maximum Risk score, up from 3,380 a year earlier.