A downturn in sales in recent months has forced DVD retailer EzyDVD into receivership, The Australian reported. The Adelaide-based company has 58 outlets across Australia including 26 company-owned stores and 32 franchised outlets. Only company-owned stores, which employ more than 200 staff, have been placed in receivership. Ferrier Hodgson partner David Kidman has been appointed receiver and manager of the company. As well as a sales slump, Mr Kidman said EzyDVD's financial difficulties stemmed from a significant debt burden and substantial operating losses in 2007 and 2008.

Centro Properties Group, one of Australia's highest profile casualties of the global credit crisis, was given a lifeline on Tuesday when lenders agreed to refinance $4.65 billion in overdue debt, Reuters reported. Without the refinancing, Centro could have been forced into administration by its creditors, potentially triggering a fire sale of retail properties in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Centro has been struggling to sell shopping centres to help pay down debt after credit markets froze following its rapid expansion in the United States last year.

Fifty-five childcare centres will close and 241 are on taxpayer life-support after the Rudd government gave ABC Learning $34 million yesterday to guarantee care for 20,000 children until the end of March, The Australian reported. The receiver for ABC Learning says 55 of its 720 childcare centres across Australia will close, and has chosen the 720 most profitable centres to sell to recoup $1.6 billion owed to banks by the failed childcare chain. But 241 unviable centres will be packaged into a subsidiary company and effectively handed over to the government to manage.

U.K. fund manager New Star Asset Management Group's shares plummeted 43% Monday after the company disclosed that it is holding talks with its bank lenders, The Wall Street Journal reported today. The discussions likely revolve around trying to organize a debt-for-equity swap to help stabilize the highly leveraged firm, a person familiar with the matter said. The company sought to have trading of its shares temporarily suspended Monday as it delivered the potentially gloomy news, but U.K. regulators denied the request.

Centro Properties Group, the owner of 794 shopping malls in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, is continuing talks with lenders to extend more than $4.5 billion of borrowings by Dec. 15 after failing to raise new capital, Bloomberg reported. The real estate investment trust may have to go into receivership unless creditors including Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. and National Australia Bank Ltd. agree to roll over loans, Melbourne-based Centro said today in a statement.

Australian parliament opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is pushing for tax reform and a review of bankruptcy laws for big companies to protect jobs amid the global financial crisis, condemning the government's own response as making the situation worse, The Australian reported today. Turnbull accused the prime minister of a "financial blunder of epic proportions" over the unlimited bank guarantee and warned he would not offer him a "leave pass" to drive the federal budget into deficit.

Australia's second largest childcare group, CFK Childcare, went into receivership on Wednesday, a day after its board placed the company in voluntary administration due to a failed asset sell-off to ABC Learning Centres Ltd., The Age reported today. CFK's board appointed BDO Kendalls as voluntary administrators on Tuesday and revealed the company was losing more than $400,000 a month.

National Australia Bank Ltd. said it has appointed a receiver to Allco Finance Group Ltd. unit Rubicon Holdings Australia, which manages three listed trusts, following Allco's collapse last week, the Wall Street Journal Asia reported today. NAB said it has appointed accounting and services firm Deloitte to oversee Rubicon Holdings, and that it would take a provision for its 20 million Australian dollar (US$13.3 million) exposure to the Allco unit.

Groups related to collapsed Allco Finance Group warned today the failure of Allco may have triggered defaults on debt facilities, The Australian reported today. Real estate managers Rubicon Japan Trust, Rubicon America Trust and Rubicon Europe Trust Group said they were in talks with various lenders about the implications of Allco Finance's situation. All three entities were suspended from trade. Rubicon America Trust said that defaults on two debt facilities may have been triggered by Allco Finance's collapse, although it was not clear in the documentation for the loans.