Headlines

A personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) which involves writing down a €343,785 mortgage debt by more than half has been approved by the High Court for a woman who ran into mortgage arrears due to her husband’s gambling problem, The Irish Times reported. Permanent TSB objected to the arrangement, insisting the proposed write down of some €343,785 to €160,000, the current agreed market value of the woman’s home, was “draconian”.

Matteo Salvini has raised the possibility of wresting control of Italy’s sizeable gold reserves away from the country’s central bank in the latest in a series of threats to the independence of the Bank of Italy by Rome’s populist coalition, the Financial Times reported. “The gold is the property of the Italian people, not of anyone else,” Mr Salvini, deputy prime minister and leader of the League party, said in comments to reporters on Monday.

Airopack’s recapitalization plan collapsed as lenders including Apollo Global Management demanded repayment following the discovery of “inadequate sales and accounting practices”, the Swiss aerosol packaging maker said on Monday, Reuters reported. Shares in the company, which makes plastic aerosol dispensers for Procter & Gamble’s Gillette shaving cream, fell as much as 60 percent and have lost almost all their value since hitting 13.5 Swiss francs ($13.46) three years ago.

Greek lender Alpha Bank is preparing two non-performing loan sales that could remove as much as 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion) of bad debt from its balance sheet, according to two people familiar with the plans, Bloomberg News reported. One of the portfolios, dubbed Neptune, comprises 1.5 billion euros of loans secured against assets of small and medium-sized enterprises, the people said, asking not to be named because the plans aren’t public. The bank is considering securitizing the debt but may also sell the loans outright, one of the people said.

British retail tycoon Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct has withdrawn its offer to buy scandal-hit British cafe chain owner Patisserie Holdings, a source told Reuters on Monday. Sports Direct on Friday offered to buy Patisserie out of administration to enlarge an empire stretching from department stores and sofa shops to lingerie, but wrote to Patisserie administrators KPMG saying it lacked the information required to continue bidding, British media reported on Sunday, Reuters reported. Patisserie Valerie was plunged into crisis in October after its owner uncovered accounting irregularities.

Deutsche Bank AG is paying some of the highest rates among large banks to raise debt this year, highlighting a key obstacle in the lender’s turnaround effort, Bloomberg News reported. Germany’s biggest bank this week sold $1.25 billion of three-year dollar bonds that pay 255 basis points over benchmark interest rates, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. That’s almost twice what other European lenders have paid in recent months.

Two large Chinese borrowers missed payment deadlines this month, underscoring the risks piling up in a credit market that’s witnessing the most company failures on record, Bloomberg News reported. China Minsheng Investment Group Corp., a private investment group with interests in renewable energy and real estate, hasn’t returned money to bondholders that it had pledged to repay on Feb. 1, according to people familiar with the matter. And Wintime Energy Co., which defaulted last year, didn’t honor part of a restructured debt repayment plan last week, separate people said.

The laundry list of allegations against Malaysia’s former leader Najib Razak for his role in 1MDB points to a lengthy road ahead as his trial begins on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported. The 42 counts of corruption and money laundering charges offer a window into the complex web of transactions surrounding 1Malaysia Development Bhd., the state fund that lies at the center of globe-spanning investigations involving about $4.5 billion of allegedly misappropriated funds. The probes have led to dozens of allegations against Najib, who has pleaded not guilty, while ensnaring Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

QuadrigaCX, the Canadian exchange that claimed insolvency after the death of its founder two months ago, was granted creditor protection and a month-long stay of proceedings, Canadian media reported. With 115,000 traders hurt in the recent insolvency crisis, the company may be attacked by lawsuits, and the court decision is a way to diffuse the tension. QuadrigaCX lawyer Maurice Chiasson described the move as “an attempt to call a time-out.” In the meantime, the Nova Scotia police force has begun investigating the case.

Despite recent claims that it had filled a €15 million liquidity gap, the privately-owned German airline was forced to file for insolvency late on Monday and stopped flights early yesterday. The move leaves some 1,700 employees, who reportedly have not been paid for January, facing the loss of their jobs. Germania, with a fleet of 37 planes, flew more than four million passengers a year from regional German airports to 60 destinations in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.