Asia Aluminum Holdings Ltd. will show bondholders tomorrow how much they are likely to get back if they fail to accept a restructuring proposal and push the company into bankruptcy, according to Chairman Kwong Wui Chun, Bloomberg reported. “I want to give investors a picture of the situation” by sharing a liquidation analysis prepared by a consulting firm, Kwong said in an interview in Hong Kong, without naming the company. Kwong on Feb.

Investment bank ABN Amro and New Zealand’s biggest retail investment advisory network ABN Amro Craigs could soon be ringfenced into a “bad bank,” put up for sale and forced to cut jobs. Royal Bank of Scotland owns half of ABN Amro Craigs and all of ABN Amro in New Zealand, and its radical restructure is expected to create a separate “bad bank” consisting of unwanted businesses and toxic assets, which is ringfenced from the rest of the RBS balance sheet. ABN Amro Craigs has more than 60,000 retail investor clients, and 300 staff in 17 locations around New Zealand.

Japan's exports nearly halved in January from a year earlier, with record slides in shipments to the United States, Europe and the rest of Asia pointing to a deepening recession across much of the world, Reuters reported. Japanese car exports fell by two-thirds from a year earlier, accelerating from a 45 percent annual decline seen in December, as the value of overall exports hit a 10-year low. "We don't see any signs of a pick-up in the Japanese economy in the near term. The economy will gradually worsen further," said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.

Financial Secretary John Tsang predicted Wednesday the Hong Kong economy will contract by 2% to 3% this year, and he pledged to boost government spending to ease the pains of a deepening recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Tsang said in his annual budget address that Hong Kong's government will spend a total 301.6 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$38.66 billion) in the next fiscal year that starts April 1. That figure would be down from estimated spending of HK$317.8 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31. Critics have charged that Mr.

One of New Zealand’s main kitchen design, build and sale companies went in to receivership yesterday, The National Business Review reported. Kitchen House has a manufacturing facility in Mt Wellington that manufactures cabinets, bench tops and doors. The company also has seven wholly owned super stores, and a discount factory in Auckland and other North Island shopping areas. BDO Spicers Auckland announced Shaun Adams and Brian Mayo-Smith were appointed joint receivers and managers of the company on February 23.

The number of consumers in Singapore struggling to pay their credit card bills and personal loans rose in the fourth quarter, data showed on Tuesday, as recession deepened in the city-state, Reuters reported. The proportion of consumers who had delinquent personal loans--due for 30 or more days--rose to 5.34 percent in December from 3.73 percent a year earlier, according to private forecaster Credit Bureau Singapore. The rate rose from 4.24 percent in September 2008.

Global Business System Corp. has become the first Kospi-listed company ordered to go into bankruptcy by the Seoul Central District Court since the global economic crisis, the JoongAng Daily reported. The court said yesterday that the Seoul branch of Netherlands-based ABN Amro Bank filed a bankruptcy petition against GBS Corp. in November 2008 after the bank failed to collect $6 million in bonds from GBS. “GBS Corp.

World stock markets fell sharply Friday as the selling pressure on Wall Street was expected to continue at the open later amid pessimism about the ability of governments to prevent the deepest global economic downturn in generations, the Associated Press reported. Investors in Asia and Europe found few reasons to wade into the market after the Dow Jones industrial average breached the levels it touched in November, when global equities went into a tailspin as the financial crisis gathered steam.

U.K. home repossessions rose to the highest since 1996 last year and may almost double in the next 12 months as Britain’s recession deepens, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said. Banks took possession of 40,000 properties last year, a 54 percent increase from 2007, the London-based group said in an e- mailed statement today. It predicted the total will reach 75,000 this year. Ministry of Justice data showed 142,626 repossession proceedings began in courts in 2008, the most since 1991.

Donor countries to the Khmer Rouge tribunal have commended the war crimes court for beginning its first trial on Tuesday, a step it claims moves Cambodia much closer to achieving justice and national reconciliation. But as congratulatory messages flood in, donors remain silent on further pledges to the financially troubled chambers, failing to allay fears by officials that the court's Cambodian side looks set to become bankrupt by the end of the month, The Phnom Penh Post reported.