The board of North of England telecoms group KCom has pulled its recommendation of a takeover by a pension fund, instead throwing its weight behind a higher bid from a Macquarie investment fund, the Financial Times reported. KCom — which was briefly one of the UK’s highest-valued companies during the dotcom bubble — said on Monday its board planned to unanimously recommend a £563m offer from Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets instead of the £504m offer from the trustees of the Universities Superannuation Scheme, which it backed last month.

Shares in Kier plunged 40 per cent on Monday as it warned that profits would be about £40m lower than expected, adding to fears over the health of the UK outsourcing and construction sector, the Financial Times reported. In an unscheduled trading update, Kier said it expected underlying operating profit for the year to June 30 to be £40m lower than analyst estimates of £169m.

U.K. retail sales declined by the most on record in May, with sluggish growth in online sales and Brexit-related uncertainty taking a toll, Bloomberg News reported. Total sales fell by 2.7%, the biggest drop since at least 1995 when excluding any distortions caused by the timing of Easter. While some of the drop can be accounted for by comparing to last year -- when sales were boosted by sunshine, the World Cup and a royal wedding -- political and economic uncertainty played a significant role, the British Retail Consortium and KPMG said.

British property lending business BondMason told investors it is pulling out of its core peer-to-peer business ahead of an expected downturn in performance, days after another property specialist collapsed in the sector’s largest failure to date, the Financial Times reported. In an email to customers on Wednesday the company said it would stop offering new investments and wind down its service after collecting on its existing loans.

UK shopping centres owned by private equity groups including Lone Star and Oaktree have breached the terms of their loans, after retail failures triggered steep falls in property values, the Financial Times reported. Market players say the breaches will probably trigger a series of asset sales that will crystallise price falls in secondary retail properties.

The past months have been brutal for the U.K.’s retail and consumer industries, and one bank that’s felt its fair share of the pain is HSBC Holdings Plc, which has found itself on the wrong side of several of the highest-profile failures, Bloomberg News reported. Last week, TV celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s casual-dining chain was placed into protection from creditors. That left Europe’s largest bank sitting on about 30 million pounds ($38 million) of potential losses, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Thomas Cook has been downgraded even further into junk territory by two rating agencies as they warned on the group’s ability to pay its debt and the risk to the business should it not sell its airline as planned, the Financial Times reported. Fitch and S&P Global Ratings both cut the 178-year-old travel company’s rating to CCC+. The reduction from B and B minus respectively brings the rating deeper into the speculative-grade classification that denotes a greater risk of default than issuers that hold investment grade ratings.

British retail tycoon Philip Green’s Arcadia Group said on Wednesday it planned to close 23 of its 566 stores in the UK and Ireland in a major restructuring of the fashion business that could also see its Topshop/Topman stores close in the U.S.. Arcadia, which also runs fashion retailers Wallis, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Burton and Outfit, said it had instigated seven Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVAs), mechanisms that allow the business to avoid insolvency, Reuters reported.

British Steel was forced into liquidation on Wednesday though Britain’s second largest steelmaker will continue to trade and supply its customers, the official receiver said, Reuters reported. “The company in liquidation is continuing to trade and supply its customers while I consider options for the business. Staff have been paid and will continue to be employed,” the official receiver said.

The future of one of the U.K.’s few remaining steel producers hangs in the balance as its private equity owners seek an emergency bailout from the government, Bloomberg News reported. British Steel is asking for about 30 million pounds ($38 million) from the government and has warned that it will fall into administration without the support, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. During a question and answer session in the House of Commons, the government said talks with the company are ongoing, but offered no details.