Asia Pacific

Malaysian conglomerate The Lion Group has blamed problems at Vietnam's scandal-hit shipbuilder Vinashin for the failure of a multi-billion-dollar joint venture, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The $9.8 billion project by state-owned Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, or Vinashin, and Lion would have included a steel mill, power plants and a sea port in the southern Vietnamese province of Ninh Thuan. Vietnamese officials said last month that the project's investment license had been revoked because investors didn't fulfill their commitments.

Confidence in the economy has fallen to a two-year low after the Christchurch earthquake, according to the monthly BNZ Confidence Survey, The National Business Review reported. A net 20% of the 456 respondents to the survey expect the economy to get worse over the coming year. This was down from a net 22% expecting improvement in the early February survey and 35% expressing net positive sentiment 12 months ago. It was the worst result since March 2009, when a net 23.2% of respondents expected the economy to get worse.

U.S. private-equity fund TPG Capital and Japanese consumer lender J-Trust are the likely contenders to take over failed consumer lender Takefuji, in a decision to be announced as early as the end of this month, according to sources familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported. TPG Capital, Cerberus Capital Management, J Trust, Tokyo Star Bank and Korea's A&P Financial are the five finalists for the final round of bidding, the people said.

No New Zealand bookstores will be closed as part of the initial phase of Redgroup Retail’s restructuring, administrators Ferrier Hodgson said today, The National Business Review reported. As a result, there are no redundancies planned in New Zealand as part of this restructure. Redgroup, owned by private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners, has 76 Whitcoulls, five Borders and nine Benetts bookstores in New Zealand. While this is good news for New Zealand Redgroup staff, their Australian counterparts aren’t so lucky.

The chief executive of property developer CapitaLand Ltd.'s China unit said Tuesday that the country's latest measures to cool the property sector, including restrictions on home purchases and reduced land supply for private development, will most likely result in pent-up demand rather than lowering prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing is concerned about overheating in the real-estate market after months of rising home prices prompted widespread resentment over unaffordable housing.

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom won the rights to a giant Siberian gas field destined to supply the fast-growing markets of China, a spokesman for the sale organiser said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Victory at the auction will allow Gazprom to extract the field's 2 trillion cubic metres of reserves, enough to supply the world for eight months, and forge deeper ties with China, where the Russian energy giant plans to start exporting gas in 2015.

Unsecured creditors in this country of Australian company Redgroup Retail, whose activities include 90 book stores in New Zealand, were owed $21.5 million when the company went into voluntary administration a fortnight ago, The National Business Review reported. In a presentation to a meeting of New Zealand creditors in Auckland yesterday, administrators Ferrier Hodgson also said entitlements of employees in this country at the time had been $2.1m, with the company having 1171 New Zealand staff.

Rosneft is set to take on Gazprom when Russia puts the Kovykta gas field on the block on Tuesday as the country's top crude producer aims to muscle in on the gas export monopoly's plans to supply China. Gazprom and state holding firm Rosneftegaz have been allowed to bid for the right to develop the Kovykta field, which is located near Lake Baikal and has reserves of 2 trillion cubic metres. That's enough to meet world demand for eight months.

The struggling Japan Airlines Corp will get capital of 10-20 billion yen ($122.1-$244.1 million) from eight firms, including Daiwa Securities Group Inc and Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co, Reuters reported on a Nikkei business daily story. The carrier, hoping to complete its court-led rehabilitation by the end of March and relist by the end of 2012, is also turning to 12 banks for 280 billion yen in loans, Nikkei said.

Korea Line Corp., the second-largest shipping company in South Korea, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in New York on Friday, seeking to temporarily stay several pending U.S. legal disputes as it moves forward with a rehabilitation proceeding in South Korea, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. The Seoul-based company lodged the petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, indicating that it had nearly $61 million in liquid assets.