Asia Pacific

Micron Technology's plan to acquire Japanese memory chipmaker Elpida took a big step toward completion after a Tokyo court approved the agreement and dismissed a rival plan promoted by a group of bondholders, Reuters reported. A district court in Tokyo said on Wednesday it was referring bankrupt Elpida's plan to be bought by U.S. chipmaker Micron to creditors for approval, according to a news release on Elpida's website.

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd., controlled by liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, is struggling to resume services after five straight years of losses and mounting debt forced it to ground planes. India’s bankruptcy laws aren’t helping, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The carrier can’t emulate U.S. airlines that have gone through court-led Chapter 11 restructuring, as India doesn’t have any similar procedures for service providers. Under the existing law, a government body only oversees rehabilitation of companies with licenses to run factories.

The travel plans of thousands of Australians this summer are up in the air after Classic International Cruises was placed into voluntary administration today, The Australian reported. Lawler Partners was this morning appointed voluntary administrators and customers with cruises booked on the MV Athena cruise ship are being urged to contact them to make a claim. The company had been in talks to replace the Athena with a German ship after it was impounded in France over debts, but talks in Europe broke down.

China's banks have been building up their bulwarks against bad loans, underscoring the potential risk to the financial system in the world's No. 2 economy even amid other signs that growth is picking up again, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's biggest state-run banks since last week have reported double-digit profit growth for the third quarter—with some beating estimates—and flat or declining nonperforming loans, typically of 1% or less of their portfolios.

One of the state's biggest construction companies has collapsed, with more than 500 creditors believed to be owed millions of dollars, the Herald Sun reported. Southern Cross Constructions yesterday appointed accounting firm Cor Cordis as administrators despite four major projects in NSW still to be completed. While administrators say the majority of projects remain close to completion, the future of the company's 39 employees remains uncertain.

The world's biggest banks are drawing up tactics to strengthen their hand in future sovereign debt restructurings, as they seek to avoid another situation similar to the Greek debt talks, when government pushed them into accepting to tens of billions of euros in writedowns, Reuters reported on an International Financing Review story.

A U.S. judge told Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc he was "troubled" by the firm's inadequate efforts to keep creditors informed about its bankruptcy process, and warned he may upend its proposed sale to U.S. rival Micron Technology Inc. Elpida's main bankruptcy proceeding is being handled by a district court in Tokyo, but Christopher Sontchi, the Delaware Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing Elpida's parallel U.S. case, said the company was taking a risk by not keeping creditors better informed.

The Bank of Japan's policy board, under growing political pressure, is expected to consider fresh easing measures at its coming meeting after concluding that its goal of reaching a 1% rise in prices is more than two years away, according to people familiar with the bank's thinking, The Wall Street Journal reported. The BOJ is due to release its initial forecast for the fiscal year beginning April 2014 at the Oct. 30 meeting in its semiannual outlook report on the economy and prices.

Nine Entertainment has avoided receivership, with the company's warring lenders reaching an agreement in principle this afternoon, The Australian reported. The US hedge funds Apollo and Oaktree, which are the biggest holders of Nine’s $2.28 billion in senior debt, conceded some extra ground, giving investment bank Goldman Sachs’ mezzanine debt funds a 4.5 per cent stake in a recapitalised, debt-free Nine. Previously, the funds were only prepared to concede a 4 per cent stake.

Japan’s government plans to tap discretionary budget funds to counter an economic slowdown as a legislative stalemate threatens to leave the Noda administration without cash as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda yesterday ordered his Cabinet to draw up economic stimulus measures by November, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said. With Finance Minister Koriki Jojima telling reporters that the idea of a supplementary budget would be considered later, the government can use around 1.3 trillion yen ($17 billion) in reserves from this year’s budget.