Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agency group, plans to tap investors for fresh funds to reduce debt after issuing a fresh profit warning as it struggles with a lacklustre property market and a botched 2015 restructuring, the Financial Times reported. Shares in the company plunged as much as 28 per cent to 57.5p in response to the fundraising plans and profit warning. Countrywide has struggled as nervous sellers have held off on listing properties amid stalling price growth in the housing market. Wider political and economic uncertainties have also undermined the market.

Former Carillion directors could be forced to contribute to the collapsed contractor’s pension scheme after the pensions watchdog confirmed it is investigating whether it has the power to do so, the Financial Times reported. The move by the Pensions Regulator came after MPs on the work and pensions committee on Monday urged the watchdog to go after Carillion’s former directors “for everything they’ve got”.

The French financial regulator has said it will not seek changes to “delegation” rules — a move that could have restricted UK fund managers serving overseas clients after Brexit, the Financial Times reported. Current rules permit asset management companies to operate in multiple locations, including London, and the City has become a global centre of portfolio management. It had been feared, however, that UK managers could be cut off from European clients if national regulators sought stricter regulation.

House of Fraser’s creditors have approved the recovery plan proposed by the department store chain to close more than half its shops in an effort to avoid financial collapse, putting up to 6,000 jobs at risk, the Financial Times reported. As part of the restructuring, the retailer will close 31 of its 59 UK stores, including flagship properties on London’s Oxford Street and in Cardiff, and will drastically reduce the rents on 10 other outlets, under a company voluntary agreement.

The UK “now faces another extended period of weak growth”, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). The business group has downgraded its 2018 growth GDP forecasts from 1.4% to 1.3%, which would be the worst performance since 2009 when the global economy was dealing with the credit crunch, Economia reported. It has also dropped its 2019 outlook form from 1.5% to 1.4%. The BCC cites uncertainties around Brexit, possible trade wars and rising oil prices and interest rates as factors set to drag on the economy.

In March 2011, just as Britain’s new coalition government was preparing to dramatically cut back on public spending, Carillion paid £306m to buy a company that helped consumers to take advantage of government-funded energy schemes, the Financial Times reported. Even by the now bankrupt outsourcing group’s somewhat indifferent standards, it would be a spectacularly mistimed move.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union at 11 p.m. London time on March 29. But Brexit, in the sense of the full extrication of the U.K. from the bloc’s economic orbit, looks more and more likely to take many years, The Wall Street Journal reported. A transition period has already been established in principle with Brussels that would, so long as there is an overall divorce agreement, keep the U.K. in the EU’s customs union and its single market until December 2020. That combination should keep two-way trade flowing as freely as it is now.

Italy poses a big risk to the stability of Europe, despite the recent ceasefire between the new coalition government and the markets — and Brexit will not protect Britain from the fallout, some of Britain’s top financiers have warned. Norman Blackwell, chairman of Lloyds and one of the few senior pro-Brexit figures in the City, suggested Italy’s political turmoil could easily recur because of the challenges of maintaining the fiscal discipline necessary for a European single currency, the Financial Times reported.

British lawmakers are pressing the accounting regulator to divulge details of the misconduct that prompted it to slap unprecedented fines on accountants PwC and a former senior partner over a 2014 audit of now-collapsed retail chain BHS, Reuters reported. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) overnight fined PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of Britain’s Big Four accounting firms, a record 6.5 million pounds ($9 million) and former partner Steve Denison 325,000 pounds over the audit.

Coupons on 525 million pounds ($701.40 million) of debt underpinned by retirement home operator Four Seasons will not be paid, the issuers of the notes said on Wednesday. The owners of Four Seasons recently agreed a deal with investment firm H/2 Capital Partners to restructure the group, transferring ownership to a new owner controlled by its creditors, Reuters reported. The boards of Elli Finance (UK) Plc and Elli Investments, the issuers of the notes, said their respective boards “have concluded that they will not be in a position to pay the coupons due under the Notes on 15 June 2018”.