UK turkey producer Bernard Matthews was pushed into insolvency by private equity firm Rutland Partners to “line [its] own pockets”, according to the chairman of a parliamentary committee. Bernard Matthews was put into a “pre-pack” administration last year, allowing it to continue trading but offload its liabilities, including its pension scheme, before its assets were sold to Ranjit Boparan for £87.5m, the Financial Times reported. Rutland earned a £14m return on its investment in the faltering company.

Weakening productivity did not start with the financial crisis, but has been the consequence of long-term business under-investment in change. Expressed as the dispersion of productivity levels, zombie companies dominate Britain’s sclerotic economy, the Financial Times reported. These businesses have enough income, or ability to borrow, to survive but are too weak to invest in transforming themselves. Whether the data show dispersion is up or down a bit over the past 20 years is trivial to the continuous impact in clogging up the whole economy.

The Pension Protection Fund offers a sensible form of insurance. But by its nature, insurance creates opportunities for abuse. A payout owed when an adverse event occurs creates an incentive to bring about that very event. The PPF pays compensation to members of UK defined-benefit schemes when the company sponsoring their plan becomes insolvent, leaving insufficient assets to pay what is owed, the Financial Times reported. The risk is easy to see.

Lloyds Banking Group revealed a £100 million (€116.7 million) compensation scheme on Friday for victims of a fraud, for which six people were jailed this year, as Britain’s financial watchdog reopened an inquiry into the case, the Irish Times reported on a Reuters story. Britain’s biggest mortgage lender has been under pressure to compensate the victims at its HBOS business, who say it reacted too slowly to their complaints, and will hope that this will draw a line under the controversy.

The Bank of England’s corporate-bond purchases, one of the stimulus measures announced after the Brexit vote, could conclude as early as this month as the program nears its 10-billion pound ($12.5 billion) target, Bloomberg News reported. After starting purchases in September, BOE officials have found investors more willing to sell company debt than they expected and are on track to meet their target within weeks.

Nine years after the beginning of a 45-billion-pound ($56 billion) bailout by the British government, Royal Bank of Scotland is emerging from its restructuring process a shadow of what was once the biggest lender in the world, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. RBS had a balance sheet of 2.4 trillion pounds in 2008 - almost double Britain's annual economic output at the time - having staged a meteoric rise from being a small Scottish lender in the early 1990s.

Principal Financial Group Inc. accused the managers of Liongate Capital Management LLP of hiding investments with Bernie Madoff while negotiating to sell half of their London hedge fund to Principal, Bloomberg News reported. Founders Randall Dillard and Jeff Holland, and Head of Research Benjamin Funk sold the stake in March 2013 without disclosing secret investments in the largest of several Madoff "feeder funds,” according to legal filings produced by Principal. It may be seeking as much as $66 million in damages in its London lawsuit.

One of the big fights in the negotiations over the U.K.’s exit from the European Union will be over money: the EU’s so-called “divorce bill.” The idea of having to pay the EU to leave is controversial in the U.K. after a referendum campaign in which the British contribution to the bloc was an important argument used by campaigners for Brexit, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported. The Leave campaign claimed erroneously that the U.K. sent the EU £350 million ($435 million) a week, money it suggested could be better used to finance Britain’s state-run health service.

Banks are treading carefully, enacting two-stage contingency plans, to avoid losing nervous London-based staff as they work out how many jobs will have to move to continental Europe as Britain exits the European Union, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. British Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger formal EU divorce proceedings on Wednesday, launching two years of negotiations that will shape the future of Britain and Europe as well as London's place as a global financial centre.

Global banks have warned they could move thousands of jobs out of Britain to prepare for the expected disruption caused by the country's exit from the European Union, endangering London's status as a major financial centre, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Leading financial firms warned for months before last June's Brexit referendum that they would have to move some jobs if the "Leave" side won, and have been working on plans for how they would do so for the past six months.