State-backed German lender HSH Nordbank AG has formed a joint venture for managing its EUR3 billion Nordic real-estate loan book with two U.S.-based property finance firms, as the bank moves forward with its restructuring efforts, Dow Jones reported. HSH has teamed with property consultants Situs Cos. and special loan servicer Helios AMC LLC to create the new joint venture, which will initially service the bank's legacy loan book over the next couple of years.

The Cameron government's deep reluctance to commit UK taxpayers' money to preventing a European insolvency is being tested by German insistence that all of the EU has to come to the rescue of Greece, The Guardian reported. With European governments embroiled in a fierce dispute over how to structure a second bailout of Greece to forestall the first sovereign default in the 17-country single currency zone, Britain is keen to remain on the sidelines, insisting that Greece is purely a eurozone problem.

Troubled Austrian engineering group A-TEC is holding talks with potential investors and hopes to remain a going concern despite a preliminary 2010 net loss of 584.5 million euros ($840.2 million), Reuters reported. A-TEC struck a deal with creditors in December to repay 47 percent of its debts and agreed to find an outside investor by June 30 as a way to avoid bankruptcy. "The management board of A-TEC Industries AG has received non-binding offers from various potential investors and is conducting intensive negotiations with them," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank said the threat of the Greek debt crisis spilling over into the banking sector is the biggest risk to the region’s financial stability, Bloomberg reported. “Greece could have a contagion effect,” ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio said at a briefing in Frankfurt today, when presenting the bank’s semi-annual Financial Stability Review.

Irish high net-worth individuals who invested £92 million in the Quinlan Private-led purchase of a portfolio of almost 50 Marriott hotels in the UK in 2007 have seen their investment wiped out, after a receiver was appointed to the portfolio of hotels, the Irish Times reported. Royal Bank of Scotland has appointed Ernst & Young as receiver to over 42 Marriott hotels in one of the largest ever corporate restructurings of the hotel sector.

Europe's sovereign-debt crisis washed closer to U.S. shores Wednesday after Moody's Investors Service warned it may downgrade three French banks that rely heavily on U.S. money funds for short-term financing, The Wall Street Journal reported. Moody's cited the banks' exposure to Greek debt, and added that it may do the same to other euro-zone banks. The three banks—BNP Paribas SA, Crédit Agricole SA and Société Générale SA—have all said recently that their exposure to Greece remains manageable.

Chancellor George Osborne will use a major speech on Wednesday to throw his weight behind recommendations that banks' retail arms should be ring-fenced from their investment banking operations, Reuters reported. Treasury sources said Osborne will endorse recommendations from the Independent Commission on Banking that banks structure in a way that their retail business would be unharmed if their investment banking operations hit trouble. The banking commission made preliminary suggestions in April and will publish a final report in September.

A year after it pledged to curb the power of the credit rating agencies, Europe remains at their mercy as it struggles to introduce regulatory steps and the agencies show little sign of softening their stance on the region's debt crises, Reuters reported. The threat of stricter regulation has not deterred the agencies from downgrading the sovereign debt of Ireland and Portugal over the past several months, as well as demoting Greece further into junk territory. On Monday, Standard & Poor's slashed Greece's rating by three notches to CCC, just four steps from default.

Euro-zone officials failed on Tuesday to narrow sharp divisions over how to encourage Greece's private creditors to help finance the nation's mounting public debt, a move that threatens to delay a decision on a new multiyear aid package for the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. The currency bloc's finance ministers, who met for hours in Brussels, said they would ensure Greece wouldn't face a cash crunch next month.

The North’s Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson has warned that lowering corporation tax must not be “debilitating” to the Northern Ireland economy, the Irish Times reported. He told business people at Stormont yesterday that harmonising such tax rates with the South could cost the North up to £385 million annually in reduced subvention from Westminster. Mr Wilson said while the Northern Executive favoured reducing corporation tax there was a “huge amount of uncertainty” over what would be the impact of such a move on jobs, investment and public expenditure.