Headlines

Seven Group Holdings has warned dissident shareholders in the troubled Nexus Group that the group will probably collapse if its offer to take control fails, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The Seven offer values Nexus, an oil and gas explorer, at $27 million, which has sparked opposition from some Nexus shareholders, who argue the offer is too low. Seven entered into a scheme of arrangement in late March to take control of Nexus Group, offering shareholders just 2¢ a share. This has been criticised by some shareholders as a bargain basement price.

BASIC Bank's default loans continue to escalate in the face of irregularities, despite Bangladesh Bank's efforts to keep it in check, The Daily Star reported. By the end of June, it is forecast to hit Tk 1,700 crore, up 13 percent from March 30, according to a finance ministry report placed in parliament on Thursday. The figure is 13.45 percent of the state-run scheduled bank's total outstanding loans, and a central bank official tipped the actual figures to be much higher as the bank showed a huge amount of bad loans to be non-classified.

Greece’s senior tax collection official left his job on Thursday in a development that prompted the European Commission to express “deep concern”, the Financial Times reported. Haris Theoharis, secretary-general for public revenue, said he was stepping down for “personal reasons”, but made clear he had come under pressure for failing to crack down sufficiently on wealthy tax evaders. “I leave with my head high,” he said, announcing his resignation.

The European Central Bank took extraordinary steps Thursday to stave off the threat of dangerously low inflation in Europe, including cutting a key interest rate below zero for the first time in a bid to get banks to lend more to credit-starved customers, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the bank stopped short of more drastic measures it has considered, such as the kind of asset purchases deployed in recent years in the U.S. and U.K.—both of which are now doing better than the euro zone.

Deutsche Bank warned investors on Thursday that continuing investigations by financial regulators into potential manipulation of the $5-trillion-a-day currency markets could have a “material” financial effect on the bank, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Investigations begun last year by regulators in Germany, Britain, the United States and elsewhere have not resulted in any criminal charges, but more than two dozen traders have been suspended or terminated as a result of internal inquires at some of the world’s largest banks.

Brazilian bank Banco Cruzeiro do Sul SA on Wednesday sought Chapter 15 relief in Miami, where a liquidator suspects some of its assets are located, after a Brazilian regulator took over its operations, Law360 reported. The bank’s liquidator and foreign representative, Eduardo Felix Bianchini, is asking a Florida bankruptcy judge to recognize the liquidation pending before the Central Bank of Brazil as the foreign main proceeding. The Central Bank seized Banco Cruzeiro’s and its affiliates’ assets in June 2012.

Credit unions could provide billions more in loans to small- and medium-sized businesses if they were allowed to centralise funds within a new structure that was guaranteed by the State, an Oireachtas committee heard this morning, the Irish Times reported. The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation also heard however that many loan applications received from SMEs by credit unions are “unrealistic” and based on belief that “optimism will triumph over reality”.

The Chairman of the Law Reform Commission (LRC), Cllr. Jallah Barbu, has recommended to members of the National Legislature to consider the passage of the proposed Insolvency Law, allAfrica reported on an Inquirer story. Giving background of the Insolvency Law at a Legislative Hearing on the Proposed Insolvency Law held at a local hotel on Wednesday, Cllr. Barbu said the key benefit of the law is that it provides detail legal procedures by which businesses having financial trouble and/or that have become insolvent may still manage to rebound. Cllr.

AIB and KBC Bank have agreed a deal with the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO) which will allow people to be debt free within three months, therefore providing for one of the shortest effective bankruptcy terms in the world, the Irish Times reported. Under the new structure, clients of the IMHO who have an unsustainable mortgage, and who choose to voluntarily surrender their property, will be processed through an accelerated Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) which will include any unsecured debt that might exist. This would include credit card debt.

The head of Germany's savings banks association has attacked the European Central Bank on the eve of a historic decision on Thursday that could see the central bank’s key interest rates fall to new record lows, the Financial Times reported. Georg Fahrenschon, head of the Berlin-based group that represents 418 Sparkassen across the country, told German public radio station Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday that if low interest rates stop savers putting money aside "then we have big, big problems".