United Kingdom

A new, more draconian tax on bonuses should be slapped on banks, a leading Liberal Democrat said tonight after the Royal Bank of Scotland chairman admitted that regulation was the only way to restrain the annual bonanza for bankers, the Guardian reported. Amid estimates that the City would pay out £7bn in bonuses this year, Lord Oakeshott said the moment had now come to reintroduce a tax on bonuses which, when imposed on the banks last year, brought in £3.5bn for the exchequer.

British-based oil drilling contractor KCA Deutag has appointed four restructuring experts as directors, just as debt renegotiation talks are set to intensify, sources close to the negotiations said, Reuters reported. KCA Deutag, owned by oil industry services company Abbot Group and trying to reach an agreement with lenders on $2.16 billion of debt to avoid a covenant breach, announced the new non-executives on Monday.

George Osborne will tomorrow vow to stick by his controversial plan to wipe out Britain's £109bn structural deficit in one parliament, saying the alternative of delay would only hit the poor and consign the country to a decade of debt, the Guardian reported. In his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the chancellor will announce that every Whitehall department will have its head office staff cut by a third, promise to give the armed forces the tools to finish the job, and dismiss Britain's public service structure as designed for the 1950s.

Dutch life insurance and pension giant Aegon said Tuesday it will have restructured its U.K. operations by the end of 2011 by closing two businesses and cutting senior management jobs, as it seeks to sharply cut costs at the struggling business, Dow Jones reported. Aegon reiterated that it intends to cut costs by 25%, detailing that it will do so by closing its third-party pension administration and employee benefits software businesses and scrapping "a number" of senior management position by the end of next year.

UK-based biogas company Renewable Zukunft folded in the summer, administrators Leonard Curtis confirmed on Tuesday, a collapse key investors Climate Change Capital blamed on confusion over green incentives, Reuters reported. Renewable Zukunft was a manufacturer of anaerobic digesters which generate electricity from burning methane, or biogas, trapped in vats of farm waste including manure, grass and maize. The British government says it favours such technology as a way to manage waste and cut carbon emissions compared with coal and gas-fired power.

U.K. business failures are forecast to fall by 18% this year but insolvencies are set to remain above pre-recession levels until 2013 or beyond, according to a survey by accountants BDO International, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The quarterly Industry Watch survey, done with the Centre for Economics and Business Research, expects the number of failures, including liquidations, administrative receiverships and orders, and voluntary arrangements, to fall to 21,600 from 26,196 last year.

The threat of big losses for Royal Bank of Scotland and other banks may help British subprime lender Cattles steer clear of administration as restructuring talks drag on, people close to the discussions said, Reuters reported. Restructuring negotiations at the Hull-based firm, crippled by bad loans and accountancy problems, were derailed last week when a group of bondholders walked away, raising doubts over the chances of reaching a deal on its 2.7 billion pound ($4.2 billion) debt pile.

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks is launching another bid to keep hold of the Premier League club by securing financing from a private equity company which would share control with him, the Associated Press reported. Hicks along with co-owner George Gillett Jr. had put the club up for sale in April, saying they lacked the funding to take Liverpool forward, on and off the pitch, due to its debt of 237 million pounds ($370 million). But the lack of formal offers for the 18-time English champions has led to the Texan putting together his own financing deal.

Total costs incurred by the administration of Halliwells have reached £1.13m, according to figures contained within the first joint administrators' report, LegalWeek.com reported. The report, drawn up by BDO partners and joint administrators Dermot Power and Shay Bannon, shows that fees of £524,354 have been charged by the administrators, of which just £30,000 has so far been received. A further total of £606,082 relates to expenses incurred by the administrators, including £585,682 spent on legal fees for CMS Cameron McKenna and counsel fees of £19,043.

A coffee shop magnate who helped launch the careers of KT Tunstall and Amy Macdonald has been banned from running a company for six years, the Daily Record reported. Beanscene founder Gordon Richardson, 48, was struck offlast week after an investigation by the government's Insolvency Service. The two-year probe was launched after Beanscene went bust in July 2008 with debts of £3.7million. Last week Richardson was censured by the Insolvency Service for his role in the collapse of the coffee chain giant.