Headlines

Cork brothers Michael and John O’Flynn have succeeded in removing the interim examiner appointed to four key companies in their construction group and have been put back in charge of their business by the High Court, the Irish Times reported. Ms Justice Mary Irvine today blocked Blackstone subsidiary Carbon Finance from enforcing personal or corporate loans demands. The judge also stood down four Receivers appointed to the O’Flynn companies, revoking their appointment over certain assets and entities within the O’Flynn Construction Group.

The healthy bank carved out of Portugal's heavily indebted Banco Espirito Santo will assume BES's 3 billion euros credit line to a troubled Angolan subsidiary but take provisions for losing the entire amount, the Bank of Portugal said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Novo Banco was created to take on the healthier assets of one of Portugal's largest banks, leaving behind the original bank's shareholders, junior creditors and loans linked to companies of the Espirito Santo founding family which are under investigation for financial irregularities.

An important reading on the health of the eurozone economy is expected to show this week that growth stagnated in the most recent quarter as German output faltered, confirming the assessment of many analysts that a lasting recovery remains out of reach for the region, the International New York Times reported. Economists are expecting that in the 18-nation currency bloc, gross domestic product expanded 0.1 percent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, equivalent to an annual rate of growth of 0.4 percent.

Cash-strapped South Korean mobile-phone maker Pantech Co. filed for court receivership Tuesday after its latest flagship smartphone failed to take off, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company, in which Qualcomm Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are major foreign shareholders, has been relying heavily on the South Korean market to sell its phones, where rivals like Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. are dominant players. Pantech said it filed for court receivership after months of trying to restructure its debt.

India's Bhushan Steel Ltd , a debt-ridden company whose managing director was arrested last week in a bribery case, has so far been able to service its loans, its finance director told Reuters on Tuesday. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's top crime-fighting agency, arrested Sudhir Kumar Jain, chairman of state-run lender Syndicate Bank Ltd this month over allegations he took bribes to grant loan extensions to Bhushan Steel.

Retailers Bombay & Co. Inc., Bowring & Co. Inc. and Benix & Co. Inc. are operating under court protection from creditors while their owners look for a buyer or partner to help them survive a severe cash shortage and overwhelming debt, The Toronto Star reported. Bombay has 55 furnishings stores and Bowring has 57 housewares stores across Canada, employing about 1,240 people in total. Benix closed its final store in June.

Michael O’Flynn has today written to Carbon Finance Ltd, a subsidiary of Blackstone, to inform the American multibillion investment fund that he can repay it his personal loans, the Irish Times reported. In a statement the Cork developer said he had informed Blackstone that he had “funds available” not only to “immediately repay” a loan of €16.7 million it had demanded from him but also to repay in full all of his personal borrowings which total €24.9 million. Mr O’Flynn declined to comment on the source of this funding.

Economic growth is likely to remain weak in Germany over coming months, according to leading indicators released today by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Paris-based research body's gauge of future economic activity suggests growth in most developed economies will remain around current rates, with large developing economies making a smaller contribution to global economic growth than they did in the years following the onset of the financial crisis of 2008.

A law firm study found that Britain’s financial markets regulator saw requests for assistance from agencies around the world jump 14 percent last year as investigations are increasingly global, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Financial Conduct Authority received more than 1,000 requests for help in 2013 and nearly one in four came from the U.S., London-based law firm RPC LLP said based on data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act disclosure.

Investigations into the financial affairs of disgraced former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm have cost almost $1m (€0.75m), the Irish Independent reported today. Lawyers hired to probe the banker's cash have submitted legal bills for over 1,500 hours of work, which involved disentangling a web of asset transfers. Their work also included selling some of his property assets and preparing for his bankruptcy trial, which was held last May. A decision is now awaited from a U.S. judge on whether he can emerge from bankruptcy debt free.