Asia Pacific

Debt-ridden Chinese carrier East Star Airlines, grounded by the government earlier this month, faces liquidation, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Six creditors of East Star Airlines have asked a court in the central city of Wuhan to start liquidation proceedings against the privately-run carrier, Xinhua said, citing unnamed city officials. It did not name the creditors but said the carrier's 16 bank accounts had been frozen by the court.

The British division of HSBC PLC said Wednesday that it may lay off as many as 1,200 staff following a review of operations, although the Unite union claimed that 2,900 staff would be affected. HSBC UK said the 1,200 cuts represent about 2% of its 58,000 employees in Britain and are being made in information technology, human resources and other support operations -- not in front-line branch staff. Some employees would be able to take other positions within the company, HSBC said.

The crash of Seoul’s Kumkang Valve Mfg. Ltd. came not because orders dried up but after the fallout from currency contracts that Chief Executive Officer Choi Kyung Shik signed with banks and now says he didn’t understand, Bloomberg reported. In September, Kumkang filed for bankruptcy because of changing exchange rates and terms of the deals. In November, one bank closed the last of Choi’s contracts, costing him $15 million, half of his annual revenue last year. Choi’s firm joined more than 50,000 businesses around the globe that are in a similar predicament.

Investors in the failed fund management group Babcock & Brown have experienced a "terrible destruction of value'' in the wake of its collapse, the company's joint administrator said today. David Lombe, who was appointed just over a week ago as administrator, said that his team from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu would seek to get as much back for the company's noteholders as possible following the first creditors' meeting held in Sydney today, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

New Zealand firm phil&teds has purchased defunct children’s buggy manufacturer Mountain Buggy, The National Business Review reported. Parent company Tritec Manufacturing--which makes the buggy--and Mountain Buggy New Zealand went into receivership at the end of January with an estimated debt of $22 million. No details on how much the company was bought for have been released. Receivers PricewaterhouseCooper have sold the business as a going concern. Chief executive Campbell Gower said “phil&teds will run the Mountain Buggy factory in New Zealand before making any decisions.

Debt-laden Australian miner OZ Minerals slumped almost 12 percent Tuesday after the government postponed a decision on allowing a A$2.6 billion dollar ($1.8 billion) takeover by China's Minmetals, Agence France-Presse reported. The market had hoped to see the deal approved when OZ Minerals shares were suspended on the Australian Stock Exchange Monday pending an announcement, but instead the government said it would not make a decision for 90 days.

China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world's standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations' growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The unusual proposal, made by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan in an essay released Monday in Beijing, is part of China's increasingly assertive approach to shaping the global response to the financial crisis. Mr.

The spreading of company tax debt is "a time bomb waiting to go off", according to Hall Chadwick accountants and business advisers partner Richard Albarran. An expert in insolvency and business recovery, Albarran said more companies than ever before are resorting to (voluntary) administration over taxes, Money Management reported.

A tiny default by a Russian aircraft-leasing company is sending ripples through the much larger market for the country's debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The default by Finance Leasing Co. on $250 million of bonds is the first by a Russian state-owned company on foreign debt since the country's 1998 financial meltdown. That is rattling foreign investors, who worry that Russia could allow many more companies to renege on billions of dollars of debt while it grapples with an economic and financial crisis.

UBS, the world's biggest wealth manager, has axed a team of six private bankers in Singapore, who were managing wealth for Turkish clients, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Monday. UBS is struggling after losing billions in the risky U.S. housing market, which forced it to obtain financial aid from the Swiss government. The Singapore team was managing clients' assets worth between $200 million to $300 million and was hired from Swiss rival Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) two years ago, a source briefed on the situation said.