Santander has taken a €1.5bn writedown on the value of its UK business, blaming new regulations and the expected economic fallout from Brexit, the Financial Times reported. The move highlights the challenges facing the UK’s fifth-largest bank, which is grappling with sluggish growth and rising competition while its Spanish owner looks to cut costs and increase investment in other parts of its empire. Santander, the eurozone’s largest retail bank, announced the news late on Tuesday after markets closed in Mexico, where the group has a secondary listing.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has cut its credit rating on storied carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda Holdings deeper into junk territory on Wednesday amid concerns over the UK’s exit from the European Union and threat of U.S. tariffs, Reuters reported. The ratings agency trimmed its rating by one notch to ‘CCC+’, which reflects substantial risks and takes it close to default territory after a faster-than-expected cash burn this year. The outlook is negative.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Thomas Cook’s Polish business Neckermann Polska said on Wednesday it was insolvent as the effects of the demise of the world’s oldest travel firm spread to central Europe, leaving around 3,600 Polish tourists stuck abroad. Thomas Cook, which started life in 1841 running local rail excursions and grew to pioneer package holidays, collapsed early on Monday stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers.

Thomas Cook’s German tour business filed for insolvency on Wednesday in a move aimed at separating its brands and operations from its failed parent, and said it was in talks with potential new investors, Reuters reported. The German government said it was considering an application for a bridging loan from Thomas Cook Germany, a day after it said it would guarantee a 380 million euro ($418 million) bridging loan for the British group’s German airline, Condor.

Metro Bank’s share price plunged by a third to a record low after a failed attempt to raise £200m, prompting speculation from analysts and rivals that the challenger bank could be forced into a sale, the Financial Times reported. The lender had to pull a bond sale on Monday after a lack of investor interest, despite offering an unusually high interest rate of 7.5 per cent. However, its advisers insisted on Tuesday that it would be able to raise the new debt after it issues its third-quarter results next month.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Germany will guarantee a 380 million euro ($418.6 million) bridging loan for Condor, the German airline owned by insolvent British travel operator Thomas Cook, to enable it to continue flying and save jobs, the economy minister said on Tuesday. The airline, which is profitable, had said on Monday it would carry on its operations and that it would ask the German government for a bridging loan despite its parent company’s collapse. It is a separate legal entity from Thomas Cook.

The British government has ordered a probe into the role of Thomas Cook Group Plc management in the collapse of the 178-year-old tour operator, which cost thousands of jobs and left people stranded across Europe, Bloomberg News reported. Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom asked the state Insolvency Service to investigate the responsibility of the company’s directors and whether any action they took may have “caused detriment” to lenders or pension schemes. The government also has expressed concerns about bonus payments.

A disorderly Brexit or a permanent loss of corporation tax revenue could leave the Republic as one of the most indebted countries in the world well into the next decade, a new report from the Central Bank warns, The Irish Times reported. In the economic letter – Debt and Uncertainty: Managing Risks to the Public Finances – the authors argue that a hit to corporation tax revenues or a troubled UK exit from the European Union could result in the State’s level of debt remaining above 90 per cent of national income “well into the middle of the next decade”.

Britain’s Pension Protection Fund (PPF) said on Monday it would assess the funding levels of Thomas Cook’s retirement schemes, following the collapse of the world’s oldest travel firm, Reuters reported. PPF is an industry-funded scheme set up to protect the pensions of employees in failing companies. “We await notification that the associated schemes have entered PPF assessment,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, adding PPF would protect the pensions of people on Thomas Cook’s defined benefit, or final salary, schemes.

Thomas Cook has gone into administration after knife-edge talks over the weekend with lenders, shareholders and the UK government failed to piece together a rescue package for the 178-year-old travel company, the Financial Times reported. Following a drawn-out day of negotiations at Latham & Watkins, the law firm, on Sunday, Thomas Cook’s board said early on Monday morning that despite “considerable efforts” the failure of the talks meant “it had no choice but to take steps to enter into compulsory liquidation with immediate effect”.