Thomas Cook’s attempt to secure a £900m rescue deal have been hampered by demands from its lending banks to secure an additional £200m funding, the Financial Times reported. The 178-year-old tour operator, which has been negotiating with its debtholders and largest shareholder Fosun on a rescue deal, had to delay a crucial hearing on the deal this week as banks including RBS and Lloyd’s pushed for an extra credit facility to be put in place to see the holiday provider through the winter season.

Kier plunged to a £245m loss as the government contractor pushed ahead with an expensive restructuring as questions lingered over its financial health, the Financial Times reported. The group, which is working on Facebook’s King’s Cross headquarters and the HS2 railway, said it had “experienced a difficult year” after it launched a £250m rights issue in December 2018 to strengthen its balance sheet. It announced the departure of chairman Philip Cox, who oversaw the appointment of the group’s new management team and is leaving after just over two years.

British department store group Debenhams said on Thursday that its company voluntary arrangement (CVA) will go ahead as planned after a court rejected challenges to the rescue plan, Reuters reported. Once the country’s biggest department store chain, Debenhams has been hit by a sharp slowdown in sales, high rents and ballooning debt, plus a power struggle with former shareholder Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct. Debenhams’ lenders took control of the retailer in April in an effort to keep stores open.

Air France-KLM and easyJet withdrew competing offers for Aigle Azur on Thursday after missing an overnight court deadline to improve their bids to acquire part of the collapsed budget airline’s operations and staff, Reuters reported. An Air France spokeswoman confirmed it had decided against submitting an expected joint offer with long-haul niche carrier Air Caraibes because “our conditions for doing so weren’t met”. EasyJet said it had also pulled out but remains committed to France and its operations at Paris Orly airport.

Eleven business organisations and insolvency experts have written to chancellor Sajid Javid warning him that prioritising debts owed to HMRC over those of other creditors in insolvencies will have a serious impact on UK economic growth, ICAEW reported. The 11 – which range from ICAEW, the City of London Law Society, R3 and the Chartered Institute of Credit Management, to the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association – make it clear that the proposed change will make it more difficult to rescue businesses.

A panel of bankers will rule on Thursday whether some investors in Thomas Cook’s credit are due a payout under bankruptcy rules, a decision that could smooth a rescue of the world’s oldest travel company, Reuters reported. The British firm, which employs 21,000 people across 16 countries, agreed the key terms of a rescue deal with Chinese shareholder Fosun (1992.HK) last month. But it must be approved by creditors next week. Holders of Credit Default Swaps (CDS), instruments used to insure exposure to credit, are digging in for a payout for their bets against the company.

Thomas Cook Group Plc has filed for Chapter 15 court protection in the U.S. as part of a broader debt restructuring for the U.K. travel agent, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s Chapter 15 petition was filed in the Southern District of New York, court papers dated Sept. 16 show. Law firm Latham & Watkins is representing the company, according to the documents. Chapter 15 of U.S. bankruptcy law shields foreign companies from lawsuits by U.S. creditors while they reorganize in another country. The filing may also trigger the payout of default insurance on Thomas Cook debt.

Some of the UK’s largest banks are in a stand-off with the government over whether they should hand over millions of pounds in compensation to the creditors of people who bought payment protection insurance and later went bankrupt, the Financial Times reported. The Official Receiver, part of the government’s Insolvency Service, submitted tens of thousands of complaints about PPI before a deadline for compensation claims last month.

Thomas Cook’s management team is facing a new challenge in its battle to save the 178-year-old travel group: credit default swaps, the Financial Times reported. The UK-based tour operator agreed the main terms of a £900m rescue deal with its biggest shareholders and lenders last month, after failing to adjust to a big shift by customers from the high street to the internet. But now the company is looking to push back a crucial meeting with its bondholders, originally set for Wednesday this week, partly out of fear that a group of hedge funds will block the deal.

Thomas Cook is set to seek to push back a crucial meeting of bondholders as it races to secure support for a proposed £900m rescue deal that would leave its majority shareholder Fosun and lenders in control of the 178-year-old holiday business, the Financial Times reported. The company is locked in a series of last-minute negotiations as it looks to finalise the terms of the restructuring agreement with Fosun, its lenders and bondholders. Any deal would need support from three-quarters of its bondholders.