Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd is seeking protection from creditors in the United States under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which allows a foreign debtor to shield assets in this country, according to a court filing on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Virgin Atlantic’s filing in U.S.

Corporate insolvencies dropped to their lowest point in four years during the second quarter – but experts have warned that it is looking like the calm before the storm, Foodservice Equipment Journal reported. 274 companies in the UK entered administration in the second quarter of 2020, representing a 28% reduction on Q1, according to analysis by KPMG. The quarter was almost entirely a period of lockdown, with government measures having a dramatic impact as consumer spending plummeted.

National League side Dover Athletic have said they are likely to become insolvent by the end of the month without further investment or an alternative solution, becoming the first professional club to warn of collapse because of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Guardian reported. The chairman, Jim Parmenter, has made the entire squad available on free transfers in an attempt to cut costs, after he claimed the players refused a temporary pay cut of 20%.

UK fitness retailer and gym group DW Sports warned it was on the brink of administration, with 1,700 jobs at risk, after the coronavirus lockdown wiped out its income, the Financial Times reported. The company, which is owned by former footballer Dave Whelan, said on Monday that it was hoping to save “as many gyms as possible” and protect jobs — but that its 75 stores across the UK would permanently close. Martin Long, the company’s chief executive, said the forced closure of the group’s stores and gym chain during lockdown had left it with “a high fixed-cost base and zero income”.

HSBC Holdings PLC warned its bad debt charges could blow past a previous estimate to $13 billion this year and said its profits more than halved, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the bank’s retail and corporate customers worldwide, Reuters reported. The lender warned its capital reserves could deteriorate, its revenues would come under pressure and it faced heightened geopolitical risk as Europe’s biggest bank set out a gloomier than expected outlook for the second half of the year.

NatWest became the latest in a string of British banks to report a sharp jump in provisions to absorb an expected surge in bad debts due to the worsening outlook for the UK economy, the Financial Times reported. The company, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, reported a £2.1bn impairment charge for the second quarter, more than twice the size of its first-quarter provision. NatWest’s impairment charge pushed it to a £1.3bn pre-tax loss for the three months to June, compared with a £1.7bn profit in the same period last year.

When Santander entered the UK in 2004 with the acquisition of former building society Abbey National, the move completed the group’s transformation from a family-run regional mortgage lender into a multinational giant, the Financial Times reported. At the time Europe’s largest cross-border banking deal, the acquisition marked the culmination of a string of acquisitions under its swashbuckling “presidente” Emilio Botín, whose family have controlled Banco Santander since the early 20th century.

Noble Corp., the offshore drilling contractor, filed for bankruptcy with a plan to cut more than $3.4 billion of debt after a crash in crude prices made undersea oil wells too expensive, Bloomberg News reported. The Chapter 11 filing in Texas would eliminate all of the company’s bond borrowings by swapping debt for equity, the company said in a statement. Noteholders agreed to invest $200 million of new capital through second-lien notes, and Noble has lined up a $675 million secured revolving credit facility backed by current lenders including JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The end of the government’s furlough scheme in October looms large for all of UK business. For retail and hospitality companies, another deadline is just as chilling: the end of the one-year “holiday” on business rates next March, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Since rates are linked to rental values dating from 2015 — and a revaluation has just been postponed — shop chains could snap back into paying a hefty levy based on rents calculated long before Covid-19 devastated their businesses.

Lloyds Banking Group is preparing for a surge in customer defaults, after Britain’s largest retail bank warned that the coronavirus crisis had inflicted more damage on the economy than it had expected, the Financial Times reported. The bank’s shares tumbled more than 7 per cent on Thursday to their lowest level in eight years after the lender set aside another £2.4bn to cover future bad loans and slumped to a second-quarter loss.