United Kingdom

English club Portsmouth has exited bankruptcy protection and was bought Sunday by three businessmen, including former owner Balram Chainrai, the Canadian Press reported. The League Championship club had said it was on the verge of liquidation. However, a day after resolving a claim for 2.2 million pounds (C$3.54 million) by former owner Sacha Gaydamak, Portsmouth announced that its immediate future is secure.

The development of a 52-story tower at One Blackfriars Road, London, was placed in administration by Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, which is reorganizing its real-estate portfolio, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. RBS and a group of other banks lent a total of GBP63 million for the development, according to a person familiar with the situation. The developer defaulted on the loan after negotiations for a restructuring in June. A sale of the site is the most likely outcome, the person added. If the project comes to the market, it could fetch as much as GBP150 million.

The debt-strapped U.K. government announced an 8% cut in its military budget, undertaking a delicate attempt at cutting personnel and military hardware without jeopardizing the country's place among the world's biggest military powers, The Wall Street Journal reported. The cuts announced Tuesday by British Prime Minister David Cameron mark the Ministry of Defence's biggest one-off reduction since the dawn of the Cold War.

Nortel Networks Corp. Thursday postponed a hearing on the appointment of a mediator to help broker an end to disputes over the cash raised in the liquidation of its global telecommunications equipment business, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lawyers for U.K. retirees whose pensions are in jeopardy due to Nortel's bankruptcy have petitioned to be part of the mediation, and the company is in talks with them, said James Bromley, attorney for Nortel. The Toronto company and its creditors want to summon Layn R.

This northeast England town has long boasted it has the largest office complex in Europe. But the 8,000 employees who fill two gray buildings here known informally as "the Ministry" all work for the government. And their boss, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, is about to send many of them home for good. Most work for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the tax agency. Their jobs are the legacy of decades of spending—especially by the prior Labour Party government—that pumped public money into Longbenton and similar places as factories closed.

A U.K. High Court Judge granted an injunction against Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. that would quash a U.S.-based legal effort by the owners to stop the sale of Liverpool to New England Sports Ventures, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The injunction was sought by Liverpool's chief creditor, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, and the team's board of directors, which has approved a sale of the team to NESV despite the objections of Hicks and Gillett.

Halliwells' now infamous Spinningfields property deal is being investigated as the administration of the now-defunct law firm enters its next phase, LegalWeek.com reported. The Spinningfields landlord, Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM), is seeking advice from Eversheds real estate litigation partner Will Densham to see if any money can be recovered from Halliwells. This includes looking over the controversial multimillion-pound payout received by Halliwells' equity partners in 2007. Halliwells took out a 25-year lease on the building at 3 Hardman Square, of which 23 years remain.

Singapore billionaire Peter Lim increased his offer for Premier League soccer club Liverpool FC to £320 million ($508 million), hoping to trump a bid by New England Sports Ventures LLC of the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, lawyers for current co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett said in a London court that they had received a bid from a U.S. hedge fund, as they tried to prevent Liverpool's board from completing a sale of the club to NESV. The board last week voted to accept a roughly £300 million bid from U.S.

The battle for control of Liverpool went to court on Tuesday, with a bank trying to force through the sale of the Premier League club to the owners of the Boston Red Sox over the objection of the current American owners, the Associated Press reported. Royal Bank of Scotland, which holds the bulk of Liverpool's debt, is seeking a court order preventing co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. from removing two of the three rival board members supporting a 300 million-pound ($476 million) sale to the Boston group.

Britain's banks are set to accelerate the sale of distressed assets or portfolios of loans, restructuring experts said at a Reuters Summit this week. Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and others are showing more interest in selling businesses or loans to shrink their balance sheets, especially as new capital rules will make holding them even more of a burden. "It's happening already," Matthew Prest, managing director at investment bank Moelis & Co said at the Reuters Restructuring Summit on Thursday.