Shares in Provident Financial Group dropped as much as 19 per cent at the start of trading on Wednesday, after the FTSE 100 group warned that reorganising its doorstop lending business would hit profits far more severely than expected., the Financial Times reported. Provident announced a major reorganisation of its “home credit” business alongside its full-year results in February, planning to axe around 2,000 of its self-employed agents and move thousands more into new positions on the company payroll.

International Bank of Azerbaijan, the energy exporting country's biggest lender, said on Wednesday a London court had supported its request to prevent creditors pursuing legal action in the United Kingdom, giving it time to restructure $3.3 billion (£2.5 billion) in debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A similar decision was made by a U.S. court last month.

U.K. mortgage approvals fell to a seven-month low in a sign the housing market is slowing, though Britons are continuing to take advantage of low interest rates to take on unsecured debt, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders approved 64,645 home loans in April, the fewest since September and below the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Mortgage lending grew 2.7 billion pounds ($3.5 billion), the least since April 2016, the figures from the Bank of England show.

Marks and Spencer’s pre-tax profits fell by 64 per cent in the year to April 1, dragged down by restructuring costs, property impairments and lower clothing sales as the high street fixture turned away from a packed calendar of promotional events, the Financial Times reported. Profits before tax and exceptional items were down 11 per cent, slightly ahead of analyst expectations according to an average compiled by Bloomberg. Britain’s biggest apparel retailer said its market share had “stabilised” and that it now accounted for a higher proportion of full-price sales than a year ago.

Claimants against Lehman Brothers’ main European arm will receive at least £5bn in interest payments on top of previously awarded claims after the UK’s most senior court ruled they should receive the statutory interest that has built up over the last eight years, Reuters reported. PwC, the administrator of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), has already paid out 100% of creditors' original £11.5bn in claims but had sought direction from the courts on which creditors should receive extra money that has built up since those claims were met.

Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt who bought BHS for £1 and received millions of pounds while presiding over the retailer’s collapse, has lost a bid to keep his company afloat after a judge questioned the value of its recent investment in Portuguese property, the Financial Times reported. Administrators for BHS Group have been granted a winding-up order for Retail Acquisitions, a company owned by Mr Chappell, after it failed to keep up with repayments on a £6m loan it received from BHS shortly after buying the doomed chain from Sir Philip Green in 2015.

Tata Steel has agreed a settlement “in principle” to the long-running pensions saga at its UK business, a deal that could remove the last hurdle to a merger of the group’s European steelmaking operations with those of German rival ThyssenKrupp, the Financial Times reported. The £15bn British Steel Pension Scheme has been an increasing financial burden on Tata Steel UK, the country’s largest steelmaker, which its Indian parent acquired in 2007. The deal “in principle” would mean handing over £550m and a 33 per cent stake in the UK subsidiary to the retirement fund.

Britain's new relationship with the European Union is still a long way from being settled, but Brexit has started a process that is bound to hurt the City of London, a Bloomberg View reported. Earlier this month, the European Commission launched a review of the rules governing one of the City's lucrative lines of business -- the clearing of derivatives denominated in euros. The U.K. wants to keep it in London. The European Central Bank was skeptical about that even before Brexit.

The Co-operative Bank is poised to reveal in the coming days that it is a step closer to bolstering its balance sheet to meet the Bank of England’s capital requirements ahead of a looming deadline, the Financial Times reported. The lossmaking bank is preparing to announce that it is in advanced talks with existing hedge fund investors about injecting more capital, after stating in January that it will fall short of the regulatory threshold during the next few years.

BT has attempted to draw a line under its worst performance since the turn of decade with a restructuring of its scandal-hit international arm, the loss of 4,000 jobs and a warning over the size of its dividend next year, the Financial Times reported. But with an alleged accounting fraud still being investigated in Italy and questions over future free cash flow amid tighter regulatory scrutiny, Gavin Patterson was forced to put on a brave face following the toughest period since he took over as chief executive in 2013. “Let me be clear: this has been a challenging year.