Private equity group TPG and its partners won't be the biggest losers if Alinta Energy's dissident shareholders vote down their $2 billion bailout plan for the company next week, The Australian reported. Alinta chief Ross Rolfe has made it clear the company, with 5 per cent of Australia's electricity generation capacity spread across 10 power stations and more than 500,000 retail gas and electricity customers in Victoria and WA, will be placed in administration if the deal does not succeed.

Bond sales by companies outside the financial industry are so scarce in Australia that the nation’s largest retailer, Woolworths Ltd., is paying less to borrow than banks and General Electric Co., Bloomberg reported. Relative yields on Australian company bonds are the lowest in three years, reflecting the paucity of non-financial corporate debt in the nation’s credit market, at less than three percent of the A$32 billion of notes sold in 2011, Bloomberg data and Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Australian Industrial Index show.

Australian toll road operator RiverCity Motorway said it will consider appointing an administrator later Friday after lenders refused to give it a reprieve on $1.3 billion it owes, Reuters reported. RiverCity, which operates the Clem Jones Tunnel in Australia's third-largest city, Brisbane, said in a statement lenders did not approve its request for a standstill agreement by a Feb. 24 deadline.

In a blow to the Australian banking industry, ratings firm Moody's Investors Service unexpectedly placed the country's four largest banks on review for a possible downgrade, citing their dependence on global lending markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. A downgrade from their current investment grade rating of Aa1—one notch below Moody's top rating—could increase their costs even as they worry that Australia's rising interest rates will crimp profitability.

The tough times afflicting the fashion and retail industry have claimed a high-profile scalp, ABC News reported. Covers, founded by the design duo Marilyn Said and Barry Taffs in 1978, has gone into voluntary administration. The editor of Ragtrader magazine, Assia Benmedjdoub, says it is a sign of the times. Management at Covers did not respond to interview requests from the ABC. But it is clear they are not the only ones struggling. Benmedjdoub says even businesses that survived the global financial crisis are still trimming their margins in order to make ends meet.

Australia’s cost of living, having already outpaced inflation, is about to surge, according to economists at JPMorgan, The Australian reported. The cost of living for Australian workers rose 60 per cent faster than the official inflation rate of 2.8 per cent in the year to October, 2010, when workers needed 4.6 per cent more after-tax income to compensate for higher living costs, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest cost of living index.

The pay television arm of Wollongong-based WIN Corporation has collapsed after several years of trading unprofitably, leaving a multimillion-dollar debt trail, the Illawarra Mercury reported. Satellite-based broadcaster SelecTV, headed by Andrew Gordon, son of WIN Corp owner Bruce Gordon, went into voluntary administration last week. WIN Corp seized control of SelecTV in 2006 in a $46.9 million takeover bid and has reportedly sunk more than $10 million into the business. Industry sources last year estimated it was losing $1 million a month.

A Canadian public-sector pension fund has joined a forestry management firm in a C$415 million (A$415 million) acquisition of Australian timber lands, capitalizing on a failed government investment scheme, the companies said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Alberta Investment Management Corp and a fund run by Australia's New Forests Pty Ltd are buying the timberland assets of Great Southern Plantations, which include more than 2,500 square km (965 square miles) of land in forestry and agricultural regions in six states. The pair are buying the assets out of receivership.

The besieged pub sector has gone from bad to worse with industry claims that up to 90 per cent of pubs currently on the market are facing some sort of financial pressure, The Australian reported. The estimate, along with 2011 forecasts of a further softening of yields -- which have already caused a 40 per cent fall in pub values -- is the latest setback for the debt-laden sector which last week claimed its latest scalp, Sydney's Icon Hospitality Group of companies.

Perth property developer Luke Saraceni transferred $1.33 million into one of his private companies as receivers prepared to swoop on the troubled Raine Square project last week, creditors were told yesterday, The Australian reported. Administrator Bryan Hughes, of Pitcher Partners, said he was investigating the transaction, which was likely to fall under the insolvency transaction provisions of the Corporations Act.