By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Contestants live under constant threat of eviction on “Big Brother”, Endemol’s flagship television show. Creditors have found turfing out the company’s owners much harder.

After years of wrangling, hedge funds which bought the TV producer’s loans on the cheap are set to take sizeable stakes through a debt restructuring. That makes Endemol a textbook example of what the distressed-debt specialists which are pouring capital and manpower into Europe call a “loan-to-own” deal. But it’s also a case study in how difficult these victories can be.

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

When it comes to carving up M&A fees, bankers rule. That’s the revelation from new UK rules that force buyers of listed companies to disclose how much they pay their armies of advisers. It’s too early to judge whether the new regime, probably the world’s most transparent, will force down takeover fees. But the initial data provides hard evidence of just how much banks benefit.

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Tesco badly needs to regain investor trust after Thursday’s trading update wiped 5 billion pounds from its market value. Allowing a senior executive to offload shares days earlier may not have broken any rules. But this tin-eared move hardly helps the grocer’s cause.

By Quentin Webb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own

Few companies embody the highs and lows of turbo-charged modern finance better than Ferretti. Once the luxury yachtmaker made a mint for private equity. Now a state-backed Chinese industrial conglomerate is buying it for at most a fifth of its peak value.

By Quentin Webb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

JPMorgan may soon rank among Germany’s top cable-TV broadcasters. The U.S. investment bank committed to be a back-up buyer if regulators stop Liberty Global acquiring number three cable firm, Kabel Baden-Wuerttemberg. But if JPMorgan finds itself on the hook, that won’t automatically be the death knell for these unusual agreements.

By Quentin Webb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Once again, banks in Europe have been left standing when the music stopped. In an echo of 2008, lenders backing private equity deals have found themselves with a big backlog of unsold loans. That bodes ill for future buyouts.

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire faces a painful adjustment to a new Italy. A stuttering domestic economy bodes ill for the advertising that’s the lifeblood of his television company, Mediaset. And his main private competitor, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia, should benefit now that Italy’s lawmaker-in-chief isn’t a direct commercial rival.