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.

Retail Acquisitions, the company owned by former bankrupt Dominic Chappell and through which he made his ill-fated 2015 purchase of BHS, is to be put into liquidation, more than a year after the department store chain fell into administration, the Financial Times reported. Insolvency proceedings were launched against Retail Acquisitions last October as part of a wider attempt to track the assets of the failed high street group, but had stalled amid appeals from Mr Chappell.

No one expects negotiations over Britain’s exit from the European Union to go smoothly over the next two years, but a German newspaper’s account of a dinner last Wednesday between the British prime minister, Theresa May, and senior European Union officials suggests that round one, at least, was particularly discordant, the International New York Times reported. On Sunday, the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, ran an article, clearly leaked by officials in the European Commission, that described a considerable gulf between Mrs.

The Bank of England faces a monetary policy dilemma as it prepares to mark 20 years of independence this week, the Financial Times reported. Should it respond to the unwelcome return of inflation with higher interest rates? Or should it worry about the latest evidence of a slowdown, by maintaining rates at the rock bottom 0.25 per cent rate? As the central bank prepares for its May interest-rate decision alongside the publication of quarterly forecasts, the signals from the Monetary Policy Committee are becoming increasingly hawkish.

British Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to protect workers against irresponsible practices over pensions on Sunday, promising new regulations on how schemes are handled during corporate takeovers. May's Conservative party will give regulators power to examine takeover proposals that threaten the solvency of a company pension scheme, and the regulator could be empowered to block takeovers if it is not satisfied with the arrangements, Reuters reported. May set out the policy ahead of an election June 8.

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.