Australian investment bank Macquarie has been hired to find an investor for insolvent German solar panel maker SolarWorld, the company's insolvency administrator said on Thursday, Reuters reported. SolarWorld, once Europe's biggest solar power equipment group, last month said it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as "the Sun King".

The Reserve Bank of Australia frequently seeks feedback on the health of the economy. It might want to call the debt counselors soon. Homeowners, consumers and property investors around Australia are making more calls to financial helplines as three warning signs back up the spike in demand: mortgage arrears are creeping up, lenders’ bad debt provisions have increased and personal insolvencies are near an all-time high, Bloomberg News reported.

U.K. Green Investment Bank Plc, the state lender put up for sale by the government, will be dramatically restructured if it’s sold to Macquarie Group Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported. Australian bank Macquarie, seen as one of the most likely buyers, would divide the Green Investment Bank, or GIB, into at least two units, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are confidential. One or more would manage existing loans while another would work on deals yet to reach financial close, the people said.

Australia’s economy added jobs in December, although not enough to prevent the unemployment rate edging up as participation in the workforce increased, Bloomberg News reported. December’s data caps a volatile year for Australian jobs, as declining participation for much of 2016 signaled more spare capacity than improved hiring figures suggested. There is some cause for optimism as participation picked up and full-time roles climbed toward the end of the year.

All 132 stores in the Payless Shoes network will close by February 2017, after administrators for the retail chain were unable to find a buyer for the business as a whole, SmartCompany.com.au reported. Administrators from Ferrier Hodgson said on Wednesday afternoon approximately 730 employees will be affected by the closures, although some employee contracts may be transferred to interested parties throughout the closure process. The administrators said they will now work with “interested parties and landlords” to transfer or close the Payless Shoes stores.

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have agreed to pay a combined fine of 15 million Australian dollars (€10.5 million) after admitting to attempted cartel conduct aimed at rigging the benchmark rate for the Malaysian ringgit, the Irish Times reported. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australia’s competition watchdog, said on Friday that ANZ Bank had admitted to 10 instances of attempted cartel conduct, while Macquarie had admitted to eight instances in 2011.

Insolvent Australian industrial group Arrium Ltd's U.S. based Moly-Cop division has been sold to private equity firm American Industrial Partners for $1.23 billion, two sources close to the deal said, ending a drawn out sale process, Reuters reported. "I can confirm it is American Industrial Partners," one source said. Moly-Cop, which makes steel balls to grind ore and operates mostly in the United States and Latin America, also attracted interest from KPS Capital, a private equity limited partnerships with about $5.5 billion of assets under management.

China’s growing debt mountain poses a risk to Australia’s financial stability, a senior politician has warned, just weeks after the continent celebrated a quarter century of growth without a recession. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for A$150bn of two-way trade in 2015. Beijing is also an important foreign investor in Australia, leaving Canberra potentially among the developed nations most exposed to a Chinese downturn.

China’s growing debt mountain poses a risk to Australia’s financial stability, a senior politician has warned, just weeks after the continent celebrated a quarter century of growth without a recession. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for A$150bn of two-way trade in 2015. Beijing is also an important foreign investor in Australia, leaving Canberra potentially among the developed nations most exposed to a Chinese downturn.

Australia marked 25 years without a recession in the second quarter, another step closer to the Dutch record for the longest developed-economy expansion of recent decades, The Wall Street Journal reported. The economy grew 0.5% in the second quarter from the first and by 3.3% from a year earlier—the fastest pace in four years, pushed by spending on housing and public investment, government data showed Wednesday. The data also show, though, that growth increasingly relies on policy makers’ pulling out all the stops as the economy tries to reinvent itself.