British department store retailer Debenhams said on Tuesday that while major store closures were an option, the company was not actively pursuing this route, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Shares in Debenhams slumped on Monday after news that the remit of adviser KPMG had been widened to include consideration of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which allows retailers to avoid insolvency or administration by offloading unwanted stores and securing reduced rents on others.

Britain's aerospace trade body ADS has written to the European Commission for the second time in four months to urge it once again to allow British and European airline regulators to begin technical planning for Brexit. Aviation is one sector that could be most severely impacted by Brexit, as there is no default fallback option for the industry if there is no agreement on future relations after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Troubled Debenhams has called in advisers to help save the chain, and is considering its options which include store closures and insolvency, The Sun reported. The embattled department store chain is fighting to keep its 240 stores open following a sharp fall in profits and tumbling share prices as consumers turn to online shopping. After issuing three profit warnings this year, the chain had already announced plans to cut up to 90 jobs at its headquarters and 320 store management jobs.

Britain’s biggest labour union on Monday called for a criminal investigation into key individuals involved in the collapse of construction and outsourcing company Carillion. Carillion, which provided services in defence, education, health and transport, collapsed in January, becoming the largest construction bankruptcy in British history, Reuters reported. It left creditors and the firm’s pensioners facing steep losses and put thousands of jobs at risk. The Unite union launched legal action against Carillion in July on behalf of workers who were made redundant.

U.K. retailer Debenhams Plc, which has issued three profit warnings this year, recruited restructuring experts from KPMG LLP as an insurance provider again raised the cost to cover suppliers’ shipments to the company, British newspapers reported. The KPMG team has been instructed to draw up an emergency turnaround plan, including the possible filing of a company voluntary arrangement, a form of bankruptcy protection, the Sunday Telegraph reported, without saying where it got the information, Bloomberg News reported.

The UK insolvency service is investigating scandal-hit public relations firm Bell Pottinger, including its influential co-founder Lord Tim Bell, for work in South Africa that led to the company’s collapse last year, the Financial Times reported. According to letters seen by the Financial Times, two senior partners have been told the UK government agency is examining potential “breaches of duties or other misconduct” relating to their controversial work for the Gupta family’s Oakbay investment vehicle.

Turnround specialist Melrose Industries, which swooped on GKN in an £8bn hostile takeover this year, swung to a loss in the first half but said it had found no financial “black holes” in its new acquisition, the Financial Times reported. The FTSE 100 group reported a statutory operating loss of £256m for the period to the end of June. This included £124m in costs for the GKN acquisition — on advisers and in taxes — as well as £128m in restructuring costs, plus inventory writedowns and hedging losses.

The UK’s financial-markets watchdog put accountants on notice that they must improve auditing of financial companies’ client assets, the Financial Times reported. Charles Randell, the chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority, said on Thursday that the regulator had spotted instances where an audit of client assets was “just not good enough”, adding to the disquiet among regulators about the quality of financial firms’ audits. “We continue to see Client Assets reports that are just not good enough,” Mr Randell said in a speech, according to prepared remarks.

UK restaurant chain Gaucho is to be bought out of administration by two banks Investec and SC Lowry, as part of a rescue deal that will keep open all 16 Gaucho restaurants and save about 750 jobs, the Financial Times reported. The deal is subject to Gaucho’s creditors accepting a “ company voluntary arrangement”, an agreement that allows ailing businesses to restructure their debt.

British convenience retailer McColl’s Retail Group Plc posted on Tuesday lower like-for-like sales in the third quarter and said the collapse of cigarette wholesaler Palmer & Harvey (P&H) last year continued to disrupt its supply chain, Reuters reported. Like-for-like sales fell 0.9 percent for the 13 weeks ended Aug. 26 at McColl’s, which trades from about 1,600 convenience stores and newsagents in Britain. Total revenue rose 0.6 percent in the quarter.