The U.K. government is pressuring councils to run down their reserves to help stave off a financial crisis beginning to rip through the country’s town halls, Bloomberg News reported. Simon Hoare, minister for local government, urged local authorities to tap into cash they set aside for emergencies to cover day-to-day services, noting many of them increased their rainy-day funds during the pandemic. However, the call was dubbed “ridiculous” by the Labour opposition and met with skepticism by councils.

Britain’s top smartphone maker, which has made JCB and Land Rover-branded handsets, is on the brink of insolvency as it struggles to compete with Apple and Samsung, The Telegraph reported. Bullitt, which specialises in toughened smartphones and had peak sales of more than £140m, has told the High Court it intends to appoint administrators, filings said. The company said that its satellite connectivity business and all its 100 employees would be transferred to a new company owned by its creditors.

Company insolvencies soared last year as businesses struggled with the inflation crisis and the long-term impact of the Covid pandemic, new figures show, The Guardian reported. A total of 30,199 UK businesses were involved in some kind of insolvency action in 2023 – 52% higher than in 2021, according to Creditsafe, a credit checking agency which tracks 430m businesses around the world.

A Glasgow rage and escape room has 'closed' as confused customers have fumed they lost money booking vouchers just days before it went under, GlasgowLive.com reported. Rage Room Glasgow, which was the first of its kind in Scotland, is believed to have closed after its parent company Escape Rooms Scotland LTD quietly entered administration on August 25 last year with the company applying for insolvency days later. Accountancy firm Wylie & Bisset have been appointed to wind the Hydepark Street business up.

A UK Treasury minister cautioned councils against selling assets even as the government proposes to loosen budget rules to help boost the finances of struggling town halls, Bloomberg News reported. “I wouldn’t support any selling off of community assets,” Laura Trott, chief secretary to the Treasury, said in an interview with Times Radio on Sunday. Her remarks contrast with government proposals that would give councils more flexibility to sell assets to help fund front-line services and ward off a wave of bankruptcies, as revealed by Bloomberg on Saturday.

WeWork’s top UK subsidiary posted a loss of £110 million in 2022 and said it owed nearly three quarters of a billion pounds to its US parent in signs the London office market’s sluggish recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has crippled its finances, the Evening Standard reported.

The glitzy Victoria Square development, boasting two skyscrapers and a new Hilton Hotel, was to be a new landmark for the London commuter town of Woking. Instead, it stands as a monument to how financial bets by local councils can go badly wrong, Bloomberg News reported. The hotel is yet to open its doors. Work to replace unsafe cladding on the outside of the building, which dominates the skyline of the town of 100,000 people, will only be completed this summer, almost four years after the complex’s scheduled opening was blown off track by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UK’s audit and accountancy regulator has opened an investigation into an accountant following solar farm investments made by a now bankrupt local authority, Bloomberg News reported. The Financial Reporting Council is looking into the conduct of one of its members in relation to the activities of Thurrock Council, the watchdog said Wednesday. Thurrock Council, in Essex to the east of London, put hundreds of millions of pounds into solar energy only to later seek a government bailout when the investments soured.

Britain's economy ended 2023 on a stronger footing than previously thought, according to a survey of businesses, amid other signs that the Bank of England's high interest rate campaign might not trigger a recession, Reuters reported. With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hoping for better economic news before an election expected later this year, Thursday's data suggested businesses and households are weathering the storm of high inflation and borrowing costs at a 15-year peak.

U.K. long-end bonds are among the hardest hit by the downturn in global debt markets, as investors make room for a slate of gilt sales later this month, Bloomberg News reported. The yield on 30-year U.K. government notes has risen 14 basis points in the first two trading days of the year, more than U.S. and German equivalents. The bonds have also underperformed short-end ones, sending the yield premium over five-year notes to the highest in almost a year and a half. Investors are ditching long-end gilts ahead of the U.K.