Asia Pacific

Chameleon Mining NL says it expects its receivership, brought about by its litigation funder, will be lifted next week in a Supreme Court decision, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The Singapore-based International Litigation Partners (ILP) on Wednesday moved to appoint an insolvency firm as external receiver to Chameleon.

Chameleon Mining has been placed into the hands of a receiver amid a stoush with the funders of a multi-million-dollar court case, The Australian reported. The company, which emerged from a previous spell in administration three years ago, is suing Murchison Metals in the Federal Court for access to its lucrative Jack Hills iron ore project, claiming the asset was purchased with Chameleon's funds several years earlier.

Clothing retailer Ed Hardy's Australian operations have been placed into voluntary administration after suffering from a slowdown in sales, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Deloitte partners Simon Wallace-Smith and Tim Norman were appointed administrators to Ed Hardy Operations Ltd and Ed Hardy Pty Ltd, financial adviser Deloitte said. Ed Hardy sells street wear in its stores in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Mr Wallace-Smith said Ed Hardy's Australian operations had suffered from a slowdown in sales.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India’s biggest maker of sport-utility vehicles, is the preferred bidder for a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor Co., the South Korean automaker said today, Bloomberg reported. Ssangyong, operating under bankruptcy protection, plans to sign a preliminary agreement with Mahindra by the end of August and aims to sign a contract for the sale in November, it said in a statement to the Korea Exchange. The company will begin talks with Indian rolling stock maker Raghav Industries Ltd.

Youth unemployment across the world has climbed to a new high and is likely to climb further this year, a United Nations agency said Thursday, while warning of a “lost generation” as more young people give up the search for work, The New York Times reported. The agency, the International Labor Organization, said in a report that of some 620 million young people ages 15 to 24 in the work force, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009 — the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization, which is based in Geneva.

The civil aviation ministry is awaiting guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on a debt restructuring package for the aviation sector, as it will help the ailing airlines bridge mounting losses, DNA India reported. "The RBI has to come up with guidelines for the restructuring of debt of the aviation sector. As far as my ministry is concerned, we support it... I believe that the RBI is actively looking into the issue," civil aviation minister Praful Patel told reporters in New Delhi.

Plunging fruit prices and a run of bad weather have tipped orchard industry stalwart John Corboy's business into receivership. Acting on behalf of Westpac, receivers James Stewart and Peter McCluskey of Ferrier Hodgson took control of Corboy Fresh Fruit on Friday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Mr Corboy, a tireless campaigner against loosening restrictions on overseas fruit entering Australia, said his business had endured ''a very tough decade''. He said the business had been forced to buy water because of drought and endured two ''one-in-a-hundred-year frosts''.

The destruction of the old Hanover debenture holders' wealth will continue if Allied Farmers' planned $19 million equity raising ever makes it off the ground, The Dominion Post reported in a commentary. The temporary delay announced this week in Allied Farmers' capital raising shows what a tightrope the company is walking, trying to placate bankers, trustees and underwriters. It has to fix its core debt problem and problems with its finance company with only limited access to new capital.

Japan Airlines Corp, the debt-ridden group undergoing a state-backed rehabilitation process, will cut its workforce by 19,133 by the end of March 2015, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing a final draft of JAL's rehabilitation plan. The draft said JAL will expand its previously announced retirement program and shed 8,339 jobs through fiscal 2014 ending March 2015, the Japanese news agency said. JAL's earlier plan was to cut about 16,000 jobs during the current fiscal year started April, the news agency said.

The Breakers restaurant chain plans to continue expanding, despite the receivership of two related firms, BusinessDay.co.nz reported. The franchise firm will soon open Breakers Cafe and Bar sites in Gisborne and Dannevirke, and look to head to the South Island. National franchising manager Simon Withnall said yesterday that Breakers New Zealand Franchising Ltd, owned by Mark and Penny Burt, was not adversely affected by two other Burt firms going into receivership.