Headlines

A Christchurch-based investment company at the centre of a Serious Fraud Office and Financial Markets Authority probe has been placed in receivership, Stuff.co.nz reported. The development will be bad news for hundreds of nervous investors in the company, Arena Capital, a foreign exchange brokerage trading as BlackfortFX. Auckland accountant Alan Garrett, a liquidator at KordaMentha, has been appointed receiver. The assets of the company were frozen by the Financial Markets Authority last week over concerns the company was breaching regulations and the Serious Fraud Office is investigating.

People struggling with debts they cannot repay should feel no stigma and should not be afraid of making contact with the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI), an Oireachtas committee has been told, the Irish Times reported. Addressing the Justice, Defence and Equality Committee, the head of the ISI Lorcan O’Connor said that there were still 37,000 mortgages in arrears of longer than 720 days and a “lack of engagement” was hampering the resolution of a large number of cases.

Ukraine on Tuesday expressed confidence it would complete a debt restructuring to clear the way for fresh IMF aid next month after state-run Ukreximbank tied up a deal with a bondholders' committee to extend maturities on $1.5 billion of Eurobonds, Reuters reported. Near-bankrupt Ukraine is holding talks to restructure sovereign and state-guaranteed debt to plug a $15.3 billion funding gap required under an International Monetary Fund-backed $40 billion bailout programme.

When the world’s top finance ministers and central-bank chiefs meet in Dresden this week, they may struggle to stick to an agenda set by their German hosts that doesn’t mention Greece, Bloomberg News reported. The Group of Seven meeting starting on Wednesday will officially focus on big-picture themes of economic growth, tax evasion and strengthening the global financial architecture. Yet the most pressing matter for many of the policy makers attending is whether Greece can stay in the euro, and whether the world can handle the consequences if it can’t.

Skymark Airlines Inc's biggest creditor, aircraft leasing company Intrepid Aviation Ltd , plans to try to block ANA Holdings Inc from taking a 16.5 percent stake in the failed Japanese discount carrier, two people said. The decision by Intrepid to try to stop ANA from becoming a sponsor for Skymark's revival from bankruptcy comes after ANA, Japan's biggest carrier, withdrew from an agreement with Intrepid to lease up to seven jetliners, said the people, who have direct knowledge of the talks. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks weren't public.

Romanian state-owned electricity producer Hidroelectrica will not exit the insolvency process this year, as initially expected, due to lengthy court actions, the company’s legal administrator said in an interview with Reuters. Hidroelectrica has managed to reorganize its activity in the last three years and posted record profits in 2014 and the first quarter of 2015, but still has to solve its problems in court. “The court challenges are advancing very slowly,” said manager Remus Borza. He added the company still had 19 ongoing trials out of an initial 75.

French corporate insolvencies continued to fall in April, data showed on Tuesday in the latest sign of an upturn in the euro zone's second largest economy. Figures published by French trade insurance company Coface showed there were a total of 62,473 corporate failures in the 12 months till end-April, 2.7 percent down on the previous year. That came after the 2.9 percent fall seen for the calendar 2014 year as a whole, the biggest such fall since 2010.

Royal Bank of Scotland announced yesterday that it has agreed to sell a portfolio of Ulster Bank loans in Northern Ireland to an entity affiliated with Cerberus Capital Management, the Irish Times reported. It said the disposal of this portfolio represented the “final material transaction for RBS Capital Resolution in Northern Ireland”. RCR is the UK bank’s workout vehicle for problem loans. This would appear to be RBS drawing a line under the deleveraging of non-core assets at Ulster Bank’s Northern Ireland operation relating to the global financial crash.

Lixil, the Japanese bathroom fittings group, faces losses of at least Y41bn ($337m) after a China-based, German-listed subsidiary filed for insolvency and announced it was considering legal action against its former chairman and his son, the former deputy chairman, the Financial Times reported. The case could revive investor concerns about transparency at China-based companies with foreign listings following other problems in recent years, including the 2012 bankruptcy of Sino-Forest, the Canadian-listed Chinese forestry group.

Banco Popular is preparing to sell €451 million euros of real estate assets in Spain as international investors return to the country’s property market, the Irish Times reported. The bank’s portfolio includes 1,753 homes in Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo and the Costa del Sol valued at $300 million , zoned land in 10 regions across Spain valued at €103.4 million and 13 hotels valued at €47.2 million, according to a document sent to investors by N+1, the Madrid-based investment bank advising the seller.