Some British pension funds are being told by asset managers to come up with more cash to support their hedging positions after a recent jump in borrowing costs, but pensions advisers told Reuters this week the market was behaving in an orderly way, Reuters reported. XPS and Gallagher said some funds had been instructed to post more cash to maintain derivatives positions they hold through so-called Liability Driven Investment (LDI) strategies.

A U.K. council facing a £33.6m funding gap will effectively declare itself bankrupt unless the government allows it exceptional financial support, BBC.com reported. Worcestershire County Council is to ask the government for a "capitalisation direction" – described by the Institute for Government as a move that allows them to sell assets or borrow to fund day-to-day costs. Papers for a cabinet meeting on 16 January said the council needed £33.6m in 2025-26 and a further £43.6m in 2026-27.

Greg Karpovsky, the founder of Stenn Technologies who was once feted by some of the biggest players on Wall Street, had suddenly gone quiet, Bloomberg News reported. Karpovsky said little on a Dec. 4 call with his 250-odd staff as they learned that his trade-finance business — valued at almost $1 billion just two years ago — had collapsed. He dialled in remotely, having left the UK just before Stenn’s British subsidiaries went into insolvency, people familiar with the matter said. On a call a week later, when most employees were made redundant, he didn’t appear at all.

Potential investors in Thames Water will have to submit new bids for the water utility by Feb. 10, Bloomberg News reported. The highly indebted company told bidders to take industry regulator Ofwat’s December ruling about the scope for bill increases and investor returns into account for their submissions. Thames Water has been looking to raise at least £3.3 billion ($4.1 billion) in new equity after its existing shareholders declared the business “uninvestible” and kicked off a formal bidding process.

There is “significant uncertainty” about the ability of weaker UK home owners whose debt was bundled into residential mortgage-backed securities to repay the principal when the loans mature, according to Fitch Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. Sharp rises in mortgage rates have led to a spike in so-called nonconforming borrowers failing to make their full monthly payments. In an index of those home loans tracked by the ratings agency, arrears of one month or more surged 11.1 percentage points to 24.2% from December 2021 through November 2024.

The U.K.’s long-term borrowing costs surged to the highest level in more than a quarter of a century, raising the prospect of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves needing to raise taxes again in order to meet her fiscal rules, Bloomberg News reported. The yield on 30-year gilts climbed four basis points to 5.22% on Tuesday after the first of a string of bond sales due over the coming weeks.

A surge in Christmas holiday spending wasn’t enough to rescue U.K. retailers from anemic growth for 2024 as a whole, with economic woes continuing to depress confidence among British shoppers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Total retail sales increased by 3.2% on year in the four weeks to Dec. 28, a vital shopping season when consumers buy gifts, food and drinks for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

A crafting company founded by Sara Davies, the entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den panellist, is set to appoint administrators as part of a pre-pack insolvency of the business, The Times reported. Crafter’s Companion, which Davies, 40, turned from a start-up in her university bedroom into an international seller of paper craft, art and sewing products, is preparing to appoint administrators at Interpath as part of a fast-track process. A notice of intention to appoint administrators was filed at the High Court in recent days by Growth Partner, the business’s majority shareholder.

Britain's anti-trust regulator said it would begin two investigations this month using its new powers over the biggest tech firms, which are aimed at stimulating investment, innovation and growth, Reuters reported. The CMA will designate firms as having "Strategic Market Status" (SMS) in relation to a particular digital activity before they can be investigated. The bar for SMS status is high, with only the largest, most influential tech firms affected.