Headlines

Pretax losses at Irish-based oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources widened in the six months ending June 30th as the group said it was in talks with its lender to extend its debt facility. Providence reported a first-half pretax loss of €8.42 million as against €3.37 million for the same period a year earlier with a loss per share of 7.94 cents versus 5.22 cents in the first six months of 2014. The Tony O’Reilly-headed group said that as with other explorers, Providence has been hit by the fall in oil prices but said it remained focused on its core Irish-centric strategy.

Two former chief executives of Alitalia and three other former managers were given hefty jail terms on Monday over wrongdoing connected to the airline's bankruptcy in 2008, Reuters reported. A Rome court sentenced Giancarlo Cimoli, who ran the company from 2004 to 2007, to eight years and eight months for culpable bankruptcy and market-rigging, while his predecessor Francesco Mengozzi got a five-year sentence. After the 2008 bankruptcy a series of managers failed to turn the company around, despite the sale of a 25 percent stake to Air France KLM in 2009.

Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly will witness the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts quiz Nama on the controversial €1.6 billion Project Eagle loan sale later this week, the Irish Times reported. The Dáil committee is due to question the agency on Thursday about the sale of debts due to it from mainly Northern-based borrowers to US investment fund Cerberus in early 2014. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s finance and personnel committee, which is carrying out its own investigation, are due to attend Thursday’s Leinster House hearings.

Britain's second-biggest steelmaker SSI UK said on Monday it plans to mothball its Redcar plant in northeast England and axe about 1,700 jobs, calling its future into question and deepening a crisis in the British steel sector. The loss-making company, a unit of Thailand's biggest steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), has been hit by a slump in steel prices this year ST-CRU-IDX, which it expects will continue in the short term. The Redcar plant, SSI's only British operation, employs 2,000 people directly, meaning it plans to axe nearly its entire workforce.

Shares of Daiichi Chuo KK, a Japanese shipping line, were halted from trading in Tokyo after the Nikkei newspaper reported the company may seek bankruptcy protection as early as Tuesday. The company’s liabilities may be about 120 billion yen ($1 billion), the newspaper reported. The Tokyo-based company, which mainly does tramp services carrying bulk cargoes such as iron core, coal and grains, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the Nikkei report. Shares of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., the largest shareholder of Daiichi Chuo, slumped as much as 7.4 percent after the report.

A brokerage report Friday saying the parent of China National Erzhong Group Co. won’t pay bond interest due today is prompting speculation over whether the smelting equipment maker will become China’s second state-owned company to default on onshore bonds, Bloomberg News reported. Analysts from China International Capital Corp. said the firm’s controlling shareholder China National Machinery Industry Corp.

The Bank of Ireland is seeking to have two relatives of property developer Tom McFeely made bankrupt in Northern Ireland, the Irish Times reported. The move comes just months after Mr McFeely, the developer behind the Priory Hall complex in Dublin, was blocked from emerging from bankruptcy by the Irish Courts. Having failed in an attempt to be made bankrupt in the UK in 2012, Mr McFeely was made a bankrupt in the Republic.

Canada’s Liberal Party, which has positioned itself with a legitimate shot to win the country’s Oct. 19 election, unveiled Saturday its fiscal and economic platform in an effort to counter claims from rivals that its campaign promises pose a danger to the federal budget, The Wall Street Journal reported. Among the three main political parties, the Liberals have made the biggest gains in public-opinion polls since the start of the election campaign in early August—and the economy has been a prominent focus.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is suing Brazil’s Petróleo Brasileiro SA and its auditor in a New York court, claiming a vast corruption scheme centered on the state-run oil company caused the charitable organization to lose tens of millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported. The foundation, started by the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and his wife, joins a long list of plaintiffs seeking to recoup money they lost as the scandal hammered the value of their investments in Petrobras shares.

Global regulators have reached a draft agreement on a rule on stopping banks from being "too big to fail" by requiring them to hold enough equity capital and bonds to avoid taxpayers being called on in a crisis, Reuters reported. The proposed standard is known as total loss absorbency capacity or TLAC and Bank of England governor Mark Carney -- who chairs the global regulatory Financial Services Board (FSB) -- has described it as the last major reform after the 2007-09 financial crisis forced governments to shore up lenders.