Struggling British fashion retailer New Look warned on Wednesday it would be forced to consider “less favourable alternatives” if unsecured creditors do not support its latest restructuring plan, potentially putting about 11,000 jobs at risk, Reuters reported. A New Look spokesman declined to comment on what the alternatives would be. However, analysts see administration or liquidation as likely.

Tullow Oil warned it risked defaulting on a debt facility if it does not resolve a potential liquidity shortfall, as the Africa-focused explorer slumped to a $1.4bn pre-tax loss for the first half of the year, the Financial Times reported. The London-listed company said on Wednesday that a “potential liquidity shortfall” threatened its ability to satisfy requirements at a “redetermination” next January of its reserves-based lending facility.

ED&F Man, one of London’s oldest commodities brokers, has restructured nearly $1.5bn of debt and raised an extra $320m in working capital from lenders, staving off a funding crunch, the Financial Times reported. A judge at the English High Court approved on Wednesday the company’s plan to switch its debt, held in credit facilities that mature in the next two weeks, into new secured loans and notes that come due over the next three years. The changes will be made through a scheme of arrangement.

One in five U.K. companies is a “zombie,” with profits only just covering debt interest payments, according to a report by an influential Conservative think tank, Bloomberg News reported.

PizzaExpress’s creditors approved a company proposal to cut rents and shut 73 of its U.K. restaurants as part of the chain’s effort to fix its finances amid the economic slump, Bloomberg News reported. The plan will put 1,100 job at risk. Almost 90% of the firm creditors and a majority of landlords supported a so-called Company Voluntary Arrangement proposed by the company, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. The deal paves the way for a financial restructuring which will see owner Hony Capital ceding control of operations, except for China, to creditors.

More than a quarter of companies forced to take on extra debt to survive the pandemic have warned they may need to cut back their operations, highlighting a mounting crisis that economists warn could hold back business recovery in the UK, the Financial Times reported. More than 40 per cent of companies took on debt during the crisis, according to a survey conducted by the British Chambers of Commerce and banking group TSB. While one in four warned over their future growth plans, about a tenth said they may cease trading altogether.

Melrose Industries has posted a £685m half-year loss as the FTSE 100 buyout specialist and owner of car and aircraft parts maker GKN was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The buyout group, which purchased GKN in a £8bn hostile takeover in 2018, said its revenues for the six months to July fell by a little more than a quarter to £4.1bn.

Insolvencies in the UK are forecast to jump by 27% this year, slightly higher than the global average rise of 26%, reveals a new economic research report by top trade credit insurer Atradius, ResponseSource reported. The latest Atradius Insolvency Report analyses the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the knock-on effect on insolvencies. Every major economy, except for China, is expected to enter recession this year with global GDP forecast to contract by 4.5%, making this recession more acute in magnitude than the Great Recession of 2009.

Newspaper and magazine group Archant is close to being sold to a private equity investor as part of a restructuring deal that would jettison its pension to the government’s retirement lifeboat fund and make shares in the company “worthless,” the Financial Times reported. In a letter to shareholders, the publisher of The New European said London-based Rcapital Partners had agreed to take over Archant, pending the approval of a planned company voluntary arrangement, a type of restructuring process used by UK businesses to reduce their debts.

UK sandwich chain Pret A Manger has said it will cut 2,890 jobs, or almost a third of its workforce, as it reshapes its business after a steep drop in demand for its takeaway food in the pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The company, owned by the Luxembourg-based consumer goods group JAB Holdings, said on Thursday that its UK staff numbers would fall to 6,000 after sales dropped to the levels of a decade ago, “when the business was considerably smaller”.