A building firm that was rescued from examinership three years ago has been put into receivership by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) and Ulster Bank, The Post.ie reported. McEnaney Construction, which is controlled by developer John McCann, has debts of almost €75 million. Nama has taken over the company’s debts to Irish Nationwide and made a joint move with Ulster Bank to appoint Tom Kavanagh of Kavanagh Fennell as receiver in recent days. The Co Louth building firm announced plans in 2006 to build the M1 Euro Park, a €200 million development on a 90-acre site outside Dundalk.

Political trouble that shook the Irish and Portuguese governments over the weekend could be a warning sign for other European governments facing voters angry about cutbacks, analysts said Monday. The turmoil may make it harder for countries to move forward with recovery from the crisis, the Associated Press reported. "Markets want to see a clear commitment to fiscal tightening, and any political instability or social opposition can delay measures being implemented," said Emilie Gay, an analyst at Capital Economics in London.

Spain will overhaul its bank regulations to allow the partial nationalization of its ailing savings banks and enable the injection of fresh capital into them, in an attempt to calm investor concerns over the health of the country's financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The change in regulation would allow Spain's state-backed Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, or FROB, to acquire direct equity stakes in the cajas for up to five years, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said at a news conference Monday.

Property investors have been granted a reprieve in the Finance Bill, with the restriction of section 23-type tax reliefs being postponed until at least 2012, the Irish Times reported. Landlords have been lobbying hard since the phased abolition of property-based legacy reliefs was unveiled in last December’s Budget. The proposal that section 23 tax relief would be ring-fenced for use against rental income from the property giving rise to that relief, as opposed to all Irish rental income as was previously the case, proved particularly controversial.

Czech lottery firm Sazka AS became the first global issuer to default this year as the result of a missed principal payment, according ratings agency Standard & Poor's, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. By this time last year, 11 global issuers had defaulted, including nine in the U.S., one in Australia and one in Canada. Sazka missed a principal payment, which, when counted with missed interest payments, ranked among the top reasons for default last year. In all, 28 issuers cited those missed payments as the reason for their default.

Music and books retailer HMV has appointed accountancy firm KPMG to advise on its debt and help it meet an April test of its borrowing rules, a source familiar with the situation said, the Irish Times reported. The source said today that KPMG, already an adviser to HMV, has been given the additional task of tackling the company's debt, reported as £152 million when it published half-year results in December. That is more than the company's market capitalisation of about £108 million.

A Munich court ruled on Thursday a squeeze-out of minority shareholders was appropriate in a nationalisation of German mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate, Reuters reported. Presiding judge Helmut Krenek said the move to nationalise the Munich-based property lender had been proportionate and, given the circumstances, was not an act of expropriation. A group of 38 shareholders, including U.S. investor J.C. Flowers, had sought to block the transfer of their shares.

Czech lottery firm Sazka AS has asked its bondholders to agree to a 30% to 33% reduction in principal on outstanding bonds and to lowering the yield on the bonds to 6% from 9% to enable the company to continue operating and not move into bankruptcy, newspaper Hospodarske Noviny reported. Sazka hasn't disclosed the names of the bondholders, who together hold EUR215 million worth of bonds, the paper reported. Local financial institutions have declined to comment on the topic.

Industrial parts maker NN Inc. said Thursday that it is halting operations at its German manufacturing plant, which has filed for local bankruptcy protection, Bloomberg reported. NN said the global recession and rising cost of operating in Germany forced it to close the Kugelfertigung Eltmann factory, which makes precision steel balls for industrial and aerospace customers. "Unfortunately, we cannot forecast an improvement in the operations of Eltmann to reverse this condition for the foreseeable future," said Chairman and CEO Roderick Baty said in a statement.

Three Icelandic banks that were taken into state ownership following their collapse in 2008 could go fully public within about five years and may be further restructured in the meantime, according to the director general of Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority, or FME, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Gunnar T. Andersen said two of the three largest Icelandic banks could be merged. The three banks - Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir - failed in 2008 and were nationalized as the financial crisis gripped the country. They have since been reorganized.