Headlines

Aircraft maintenance specialist, Transaero, will exit High Court protection on Wednesday after a three-month examinership succeeded in rescuing the business. Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton was appointed as examiner to Transaero Engineering Ireland in January after it ran into difficulties as a result of its Russian parent being unable to pay debts due to the Shannon operation. The company confirmed on Tuesday that the High Court has approved the completion of its examinership and that it will exit the process at midday on April 15th.

The state of Jammu Kashmir is heading towards insolvency as its treasury is empty, The Tribune reported. About 50 per cent of the government employees, pensioners, daily wagers and casual labourers have not received salaries. “It is a grim situation and there are no chances of the money coming anytime soon,” said a source in the government. Sources confirmed that Rs 1,400 crore was released in March but that was exhausted to meet bills that were pending for months.

Greece is preparing to take the dramatic step of declaring a debt default unless it can reach a deal with its international creditors by the end of April, according to people briefed on the radical leftist government’s thinking, the Financial Times reported. The government, which is rapidly running out of funds to pay public sector salaries and state pensions, has decided to withhold €2.5bn of payments due to the International Monetary Fund in May and June if no agreement is struck, they said.

In a related story, the International New York Times reported that even if it survives the next three months teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Greece may have blown its best chance of a long-term debt deal by alienating its eurozone partners when it most needed their support. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist-led government has so thoroughly shattered creditors’ trust that solutions that might have been on offer a few weeks ago now seem out of reach.

Just months after resigning, the former head of the embattled Chinese property developer, the Kaisa Group, returned unexpectedly to the helm, raising doubts about whether the company’s rescue by a rival will move forward, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The surprise comeback on Monday of the chairman and chief executive, Guo Yingcheng, is the latest twist in the Kaisa story. Once a darling of global investors, Kaisa started to stumble last fall, after the government blocked the sale of some of its properties in Shenzhen, its largest market.

Debt-saddled Mexican homebuilder Desarrolladora Homex said Monday that it is back in the good graces of Mexican mortgage institution Infonavit, which extends the majority of home loans in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. Homex said it has reached an agreement with Infonavit so that the builder can once again sell homes to Infonavit borrowers.

Tumbling interest rates in Europe have put some banks in an inconceivable position: owing money on loans to borrowers, The Wall Street Journal reported. At least one Spanish bank, Bankinter SA, the country’s seventh-largest lender by market value, has been paying some customers interest on mortgages by deducting that amount from the principal the borrower owes. The problem is just one of many challenges caused by interest rates falling below zero, known as a negative interest rate.

A company that shares its director with the Noggi Frozen Yogurt chain has entered voluntary administration, SmartCompany.au reported. Stewart Free and Bradd Morelli of Jirsch Sutherland were appointing administrators of SKS Partners on April 9. An investigation by SmartCompany has revealed SKS Partners has close ties with the franchised Noggi Frozen Yogurt chain, which was founded by John Suh in 2009 during the height of the frozen yoghurt craze in Australia.

Hebei Financing Investment Guarantee Group, the country’s second largest financing guarantee company has lost its ability to guarantee nearly 50 billion yuan worth of loans, signalling the spread of risk in the country’s financial system, The Australian reported. According to report from Caixin, the company is no longer in the position to guarantee loans, and scores of banks, trusts, brokers and funds are facing the prospect of a default on their loans. The company is a fully owned subsidiary of the Hebei provincial government.

German lenders should prepare to write off at least half the value of the bonds they hold in Austrian 'bad bank' Heta Asset Resolution AG, a Bundesbank board member said in an interview published on Friday. "I think this situation has to be taken seriously by the German banks," Andreas Dombret told news agency Bloomberg in an interview in Johannesburg, where he addressed the local chamber of commerce. "It's advisable and recommendable to take provisions on this, and ... I would say it should be a minimum of a 50 percent provision for potential losses," he added.