Nexus Energy shares have slumped as much as 29 per cent on the likelihood that the contentious $26.6 million takeover offer from Seven Group Holdings would be voted down by shareholders, forcing the oil and gas junior into administration and potentially handing control of its key asset to oil major Royal Dutch Shell, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Proxy votes on the scheme of arrangement for Seven Group's 2¢-a-share takeover were due by 11am Tuesday ahead of voting at a shareholder meeting in Melbourne on Thursday.

Seven Group Holdings has warned dissident shareholders in the troubled Nexus Group that the group will probably collapse if its offer to take control fails, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The Seven offer values Nexus, an oil and gas explorer, at $27 million, which has sparked opposition from some Nexus shareholders, who argue the offer is too low. Seven entered into a scheme of arrangement in late March to take control of Nexus Group, offering shareholders just 2¢ a share. This has been criticised by some shareholders as a bargain basement price.

One of Australia's best-known insolvency practitioners, KordaMentha partner Mark Korda, has been accused of giving substandard advice to failed investment group Octaviar in the run-up to its collapse in September 2008, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. In a lawsuit filed with the Queensland Supreme Court, the liquidators of two companies in the Octaviar group accuse KordaMentha's advisory arm, 333 Capital, of breach of duty and misleading or deceptive conduct.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott defended the budget and said Australians were put “on notice” about spending cuts before the last election, as polls showed his approval ratings and support for the government slumping, Bloomberg News reported. “Doing nothing was not an option,” Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We’re not doing this because we are somehow political sadomasochists.

Western Australia is contributing more to Australia's growth in personal insolvencies than any other part of the country, BankingDay reported. The Australian Financial Security Authority has released regional insolvency data for the first time, showing those parts of Australia where insolvency rates are above average. Nationally, the number of debtors entering a personal insolvency (bankruptcy, debt agreement or a personal insolvency agreement) in the March quarter was 2.5 per cent up on the December quarter. Insolvencies in greater Perth were up 18.2 per cent over the same period.

Workers for one the major contractors constructing Canberra's Majura Parkway have been stood down as the company enters voluntary administration, ABC News reported. Earthmoving works by Hewatt stopped on the $288 million road project on Wednesday after negotiations with lead contractor Fulton Hogan failed. About 200 workers met with voluntary administrators PPB Advisory this morning at another of Hewatt's worksites, the Horse Park Drive extension at Gungahlin.

Australians need to share the burden of reducing the country’s debt in a budget due May 13, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, after an opinion poll found most voters think he’s broken a promise on tax, Bloomberg News reported. “A strong budget is the foundation for a strong country” and Australians need to “chip away” at public debt, Abbott said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. A temporary levy increasing the top rate of income tax would be a broken promise, said 72 percent of people in a Galaxy poll for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper yesterday.

Corporate receivers Ferrier Hodgson are trying to sell off the assets of collapsed Melbourne internet service provider ispONE for the second time in less than a year, after the remaining subsidiaries entered voluntary administration on Friday, The Australian Financial Review reported.

Australia risks unleashing a debt crisis similar to Europe's unless the government reins in spending and considers privatizing some state assets, according to an advisory body charged with assessing the nation's finances, The Wall Street Journal reported. The National Commission of Audit said the government needed to make the changes to shield the world's 12th-largest economy from the sorts of sovereign-debt problems that certain European nations such as Greece and Spain have recently faced.

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott has gone from student boxing champion at Oxford University to a combative defender of conservative values during two decades in Parliament, The Wall Street Journal reported. Now, he is preparing for a federal budget on May 13 that represents one of the biggest battles of his leadership yet. In his sights are generous government welfare programs for Australians, which the ruling Liberal Party argues are increasingly unaffordable as the boost to Treasury coffers from a decadelong mining boom fades. Mr.