India’s microfinance companies are offering their 6.7m borrowers in Andhra Pradesh the option of restructuring outstanding loans that amount to up to $2.7bn, in an effort to defuse a political backlash against a business once touted as alleviating poverty, the Financial Times reported. The offer, which will be made to borrowers over the coming week, is a tacit concession by the microfinance institutions that many of their small, poor clients are facing serious difficulties in keeping up with weekly debt repayments.

Allan Crafar likened his bank to a "dog being dragged along on the end of a chain" during his testimony in a High Court case in Auckland yesterday over ownership of cows on farms now in receivership, Stuff.co.nz reported on a Dominion Post article. The case concerns ownership of 4000 heifers sold by a Crafar Farms company and leased back via agri-finance company Stock Co to another company owned by Mr Crafar's son, Robert Crafar.

Bahrain-based Awal Bank BSC, controlled by Saudi Arabia's Saad Group and Saudi businessman Maan Al-Sanea, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, Reuters reported. According to its Chapter 11 petition filed with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Awal has between $50 million and $100 million of assets, and more than $1 billion of liabilities. Saad Investments Co owns a 48 percent stake in the bank and Al-Sanea owns 47 percent, the petition shows.

More than one third of listed companies earn less than the interest they have to pay on outstanding debts, a state researcher claimed Thursday, The Korea Times reported. Lee Ji-eon, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Finance, claimed that 561 listed firms ― 36 percent of all the listed companies ― marked an interest coverage ratio below 100 percent in 2008 ― skyrocketing from 24 percent in 2004. An interest coverage ratio below 100 percent suggests that the company’s profit isn’t enough to meet interest payment obligations.

The chairman of Japan Airlines Corp. said Wednesday that the airline plans to boost its capital by another Y50 billion ($615.5 million) on top of an expected Y350 billion injection from a state-backed turnaround body as it restructures itself in bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Kazuo Inamori also said the company, together with the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp., is trying to drum up new loans from JAL's reluctant creditors as it plans to refinance its roughly Y300 billion debt by the end of March.

One of Australia's longest operating technology retailers, A&R Computer Services, has entered voluntary administration, CRN reported. A&R, which has operated in South Australia for twenty years, closed its doors on October 19. A&R's customer sales number featured a recorded message advising customers and business partners that the company has entered voluntary administration - with Paul Jorgensen of Kennedy and Co. taking the reins of the company.

Battling financier and rural services provider Allied Farmers has repaid its term loan facility with Westpac in full and reached agreement on outstanding debt to collapsed subsidiary Allied Nationwide Finance, The National Business Review reported. The company repaid the loan out of proceeds from the sale of former Hanover and United Finance assets acquired last December.

Inflows of capital are posing a growing risk to East Asian macro-economic stability, according to the World Bank’s half-yearly review of regional trends, the Financial Times reported. The report comes amid concern in Asia that a likely fresh round of US Federal Reserve quantitative easing, dubbed “QE2”, will unleash a destablising wash of funds into the region.

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley has confirmed transactions disclosed in the National Business Review concerning South Canterbury Finance's murky involvement in the Auckland Hyatt Regency hotel are part of the investigation his office launched this morning. Mr Feeley said the suspect loans stretched back to 2005, but the timeframe could be stretched as his investigation progressed. The NBR reported in last weeks' print edition that South Canterbury's financial interest in the Hyatt began in 2002.

Ten retirement villages that are owned by the listed Prime Retirement and Aged Care Property Trust have been placed in the hands of receivers after banks including National Australia Bank and Suncorp Metway lost patience with the group, smartcompany.au reported. While Prime Retirement and Aged Care Property Trust are not in receivership, the board expects to appoint administrators from PwC as early as today. Suncorp appointed receivers from Ernst & Young to Prime Trust's retirement villages in Bundaberg, Mackay and Townsville on Friday afternoon.