Danish bunker supplier OW Bunker announced Thursday, November 6, that two of its major operating subsidiaries were expected to be insolvent and it is seeking court protection, Platt’s reported. The bunker supplier is seeking protection for subsidiaries OW Bunker & Trading and OW Supply & Trading in the probate court in Aalborg, Denmark, the company said in a statement. "For the time being, the financial impact cannot be assessed, however, it must be assumed that the group's equity is lost," the company said.

Debt-stricken Danish tanker operator Torm said on Monday it had agreed a deal with group of its lenders and Oaktree Capital Management, a large U.S. investor in distressed debt, to restructure the company, Reuters reported. The Danish company is one of the largest product tanker companies in the world, owning 43 tankers, two dry bulk vessels and operating 53 more vessels. Torm's net interest-bearing debt amounts to $1.4 billion. It ordered a series of new vessels in the years before the global economic downturn and was then hit by collapsing freight rates.

Denmark, battling a stagnant economy and concerns about a productivity gap with other nations, is planning to slash its corporate taxes in phases over the next three years to better stack up against other countries in the region, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move, which follows similar tax cuts in the U.K., Sweden and Finland, comes as pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who was elected in 2011; support for her in opinion polls has been softening. A ruling coalition led by Ms.

Troubled Scandinavian airline SAS and its labor unions on Monday pushed on with talks aimed at ensuring the group's survival and avoiding bankruptcy after a midnight deadline for a deal passed, The Chicago Tribune reported on a Reuters story. The Scandinavian airline, hit by competition from lower-price rivals, last week announced plans to cut some salaries by up to 17 percent, reduce overall headcount to about 9,000 from 15,000 and reduce costs.

SAS AB on Monday said it would cut salaries and more jobs as part of a new restructuring plan that is dependent partly on the support of labor unions, as the Scandinavian airline carrier tries to convince investors of its long-term future, The Wall Street Journal reported. The airline, partly owned by the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish governments, said its new plan will include cost savings of around three billion Swedish kronor ($445 million), outsourcing parts of customer service and improvements to information technology.

The Danish bank Sydbank has agreed to take over all activities of local rival Tønder Bank, The Copenhagen Post reported. The deal came after Finanstilsynet (FSA), the financial supervisory administration, said last Friday that Tønder Bank didn't have enough capital to continue as an independent company. Under the agreement, Sydbank will take over around 18,000 customers and a balance sheet of roughly 2.3 billion kroner. Over the past few weeks, regulators inspected Tønder Bank's books and found that they were short 300 million kroner.

Indonesia's PT Berlian Laju Tanker , the world's third-largest chemical shipper, hopes to restructure its $1.9 billion debt by the year-end and will switch its focus to niche liquid chemical and gas transport, its founder and chairman said in a rare media interview, The Chicago Tribune reported on a Reuters story. The country's leading oil and gas shipper defaulted on several debt instruments earlier this year and has been talking to creditors about restructuring its operations and finances.

Danish-owned National Irish Bank (NIB) will turn its attention to its head office after completing a round of cuts that will see it lay off one-quarter of its workers and shutting its retail operation, the Irish Times reported. NIB, owned by Danske Bank, said in June it intended to close its 27 branches in the Republic and seek 100 redundancies from its 442-strong workforce. Yesterday, the bank confirmed it intended to review its head office in the first quarter of next year and inform staff of its findings during the second three months of 2013.

Of all the many striking policy measures taken since the financial crisis, one of the most extraordinary has gone almost unremarked – the introduction of negative official interest rates by Denmark, the Financial Times reported. In an attempt to maintain its strict currency peg to the euro, the Danish central bank lowered its main deposit rate for banks – the certificate of deposit or CD rate – to -0.2 per cent last month. The Nationalbanken felt it had little choice.

The charge for bad loans at National Irish Bank will remain high for the remainder of the year before falling, the head of the Danish bank’s Republic of Ireland operations said, as the bank reported a pretax loss of €401 million for the first half of the year, the Irish Times reported. Loan impairments fell 7 per cent to €391 million for the first half, but NIB made a similar loss to the deficit posted for the first six months of 2011 as costs increased by 54 per cent to cover the closure of the bank’s 27 branches and laying off a further 100 staff.