Headlines

Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, on Friday praised a recent review of eurozone banks, saying it would help remove doubts about the integrity of the financial system, the International New York Times reported. Some analysts have questioned whether a health check of banks completed last month by the European Central Bank was rigorous enough, but speaking at a conference in Paris, Ms. Yellen appeared to disagree. “The recent comprehensive assessment is an important step toward building confidence,” Ms. Yellen said. Ms.

Bulgaria’s central bank on Thursday revoked the license of one of the country’s biggest lenders and moved to open bankruptcy proceedings, the International New York Times reported. The lender, Corporate Commercial Bank, also known as K.T.B., has been closed since a bank run in June, leaving businesses and consumers without access to about $4 billion in deposits. The move on Thursday halts all activities at the bank and opens the way for the payment of more than half of the deposits — about $2.3 billion, which are insured by the state under European Union law.

Finnish nickel company Talvivaara said a subsidiary that holds all of the group's mining assets will apply for bankruptcy protection after failing to raise financing, Reuters reported. Talvivaara last year halted operations at its sole mine in northern Finland and started a search for investors after a drop in nickel prices, repeated production disruptions and environmental damage. The parent company said on Thursday it would continue to process ore for now while it aimed to secure new financing to buy back mining subsidiary Talvivaara Sotkamo.

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.

Euro zone finance ministers will consider three options on Thursday for what happens after Greece exits its bailout at the end of the year, seeking to balance the need to reassure investors with the demands of domestic Greek politics. The Greek government has staked its survival on exiting the bailout a year early, a move that will please voters hammered by austerity measures imposed by the EU and the IMF, but which has already rattled markets, pushing up Greek bond yields.

Engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. on Thursday said it would cut 4,000 jobs and record significant charges over the next 18 months as part of a restructuring aimed partly at combating a global slowdown in mining, The Wall Street Journal reported. Montreal-based SNC said it plans to scale back some underperforming activities and its corporate structure in a bid to improve efficiency and bolster its competitive position.

Zalman Tech, a legendary maker of cooling solutions and other devices, has filed for bankruptcy. The company had to file for insolvency protection in South Korea because its parent company Moneual took loans it could not eventually repay by using fabricated export data. The destiny of Zalman is unclear. Zalman was established in 1999 and initially focused purely on coolers for microprocessors and graphics cards.

Leyne, Strauss-Kahn & Partners, the financial-services firm that was headed by former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and late financier Thierry Leyne, said on Wednesday that it is insolvent, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Luxembourg-based firm said in a short statement that, after the “tragic death” of Mr.

International lenders have attacked Portugal for allowing the pace of reform to slacken since the country exited a three-year bailout programme, warning that some of the progress made at the cost of tough austerity measures could be reversed, the Financial Times reported. After their first mission to Portugal since its €78bn rescue programme ended in May, the “troika” of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank on Wednesday said that greater reform efforts were needed to “underpin a still nascent economic recovery”.

The list of multinational businesses accused of using European jurisdictions to cut their tax bills grew much longer on Wednesday when a group of investigative reporters published findings accusing more than 300 companies, including PepsiCo, Ikea and FedEx, of benefiting from preferential deals with the government of Luxembourg. The findings, by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, are based on a trove of leaked documents that included 548 so-called comfort letters that the group said Luxembourg had provided to corporations seeking favorable tax treatment.