India mining giant Ashapura Minechem Ltd. filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan in a move to block foreign shipping companies that won a $125 million legal judgment against it from raiding the company's U.S. bank accounts, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Mumbai-based company, a mineral miner and processor with debts topping $223.4 million, argued that the seizure of its U.S.-based assets would jeopardize the financial overhaul underway in its home country.

Receivers have been appointed to another company in Wellington property developer Terry Serepisos' empire and have taken over the management of his own headquarters, The New Zealand Herald reported. Deloitte's Barry Jordan and David Vance were appointed receivers and managers of Century City Investments on Friday. It owns the ASB Tower on Wellington's Hunter St, which is home to the Century City offices, according to a statement on the accounting firm's website.

Listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggled with cash shortages in the first half of this year amid the faltering economic recovery, a non-profit organization said Monday. The nation’s top-10 business groups added more cash to their wallets during the same period, The Korea Times reported. According to the Korea Listed Companies Association (KLCA), the cashable assets of Korea’s 632 listed companies stood at 48.13 trillion won ($40.76 billion) as of the end of June, compared with 52.94 trillion won at the end of last year, a 7.6 percent contraction.

Troubles among small manufacturers in the bellwether Chinese city of Wenzhou are putting a cloud over a key part of China's economy, further shaking investor confidence and underscoring the stakes as Beijing tries to strike a balance between fostering growth and containing inflation, The Wall Street Journal reported. More than two-dozen small, private businesses in the eastern city known for its entrepreneurial success have gone belly up in recent days because they couldn't repay maturing bank loans, according to state media reports.

New Zealand and the companies that cut its credit rating last week have a different view of the country’s ability to curb government and household debt, Finance Minister Bill English said, Bloomberg reported. Standard & Poor’s, which reduced New Zealand’s long-term foreign currency rating to AA from AA+ on Sept. 30 said there’s a likelihood household and corporate debt will continue to rise even as earthquake-related spending pressures and fiscal stimulus to support growth strain the government’s ability to curb borrowing.

Beleaguered discount retailer Koutons Retail India has secured its bankers' approval for a corporate debt restructuring, or CDR, package, The Economic Times reported. The CDR Cell, constituted by the Reserve Bank, cleared the package on Thursday with majority support of the lenders after nine months of negotiations. It paves the way for a reorganisation of Koutons' unmet financial obligations and prevents the retailer from defaulting on its loans and a possible bankruptcy. The Delhi-based retailer is under a Rs 600 crore debt that carries an average cost of 14%.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. said it could raise up to $11 billion from debt markets over the next nine months, in the latest effort by a major Chinese bank to replenish capital amid widening concerns about potential bad loans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bank, one of the world's largest by assets, has already raised 170 billion yuan ($20 billion) from the capital markets over the past two years. During that period, China's major banks raised more than $100 billion from equity and debt markets both locally and in Hong Kong.

A $100 million resort complex in Queensland owned by developer and marina group Meridien has been placed into voluntary administration, SmartCompany.com.au reported. The 124-unit One Bright Point project, of which 114 apartments have been sold, is now being looked after by BRI Ferrier, which will look to sell the remaining apartments. It’s understood the project was hit by the weakened property market, troubles in the tourism industry, the Queensland natural disaster and the strong Australian dollar.

Financial regulators' decision to close seven troubled savings banks earlier this week spawned dramatic scenes of angry depositors outside locked branch offices and, on Friday, the suicide of an executive at one of the closed-down institutions, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The savings-bank industry, with just over 100 institutions and 2.4% of the nation's financial assets, is a small niche in South Korea's financial industry.

China's massive economic-stimulus program has supported near double-digit growth, but also Suncity Co , a condominium developer based in Japan's quake-hit northeast, said it filed for bankruptcy protection with the Sendai District Court on Monday with 24.9 billion yen ($326.5 million) in liabilities after sales plunged in the wake of the March disaster, Reuters reported. Investment firm FinTech Global said it would back Suncity's restructuring. Suncity, which employs 159 people, said that it plans to delist its shares from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.