Headlines

Eike Batista’s bankrupt shipbuilder, OSX, has presented its long-awaited restructuring plan, seeking approval to pay back its $2.6bn of debt over 25 years, the Financial Times reported. Under the proposal, Brazil’s former richest man plans to ensure the company’s survival by leasing the areas OSX owns in the vast Açu Port complex in Rio de Janeiro. It may also seek to raise additional funds, possibly through the sale of stakes in the company, OSX said in the plan it presented to a Rio court late on Friday.

Deutsche Bank AG plans to sell €8 billion ($11 billion) of new shares in a bid to quell concerns about its capital buffers in a challenging business and regulatory environment, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes in the midst of a health check of the European banking sector, and as Germany's largest lender seeks to grab market share and improve its position as a global investment and retail bank.

People could be stopped taking out mortgages worth many times their salary to buy new homes, the Governor of the Bank of England has said, The Telegraph reported. Mark Carney said in an interview that capping the size of mortgage ratios to salaries was one measure the Bank was considering to controlling the housing market. The Bank was also watching to see if the Government’s Help to Buy scheme – in which the Government gives people taxpayers money to cover deposits on new homes worth up to £600,000 - was fuelling them.

The Co-op's members voted unanimously on Saturday to accept a controversial plan to overhaul the 150-year-old organisation, which has been rocked by a series of crises, The Guardian reported. The decision to endorse reforms put forward by City grandee Paul Myners will be seen as a major victory for its executive directors. Spelling out the scale of the crisis facing the group, Richard Pennycook, the group's interim chief executive, pointed out that debt interest payments were now costing the organisation £100m a year.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott defended the budget and said Australians were put “on notice” about spending cuts before the last election, as polls showed his approval ratings and support for the government slumping, Bloomberg News reported. “Doing nothing was not an option,” Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We’re not doing this because we are somehow political sadomasochists.

Western Australia is contributing more to Australia's growth in personal insolvencies than any other part of the country, BankingDay reported. The Australian Financial Security Authority has released regional insolvency data for the first time, showing those parts of Australia where insolvency rates are above average. Nationally, the number of debtors entering a personal insolvency (bankruptcy, debt agreement or a personal insolvency agreement) in the March quarter was 2.5 per cent up on the December quarter. Insolvencies in greater Perth were up 18.2 per cent over the same period.

Weak consumer spending and business investment brought the French economy to a standstill in the first quarter of the year, with inventory changes and public spending the only factors keeping the euro zone’s second-largest economy from contracting, the Irish Times reported. First quarter data released today missed expectations of analysts polled by Reuters of 0.2 per cent growth. France will now need 0.5 per cent growth each quarter to meet a government forecast of 1 percent growth for 2014, Natixis Asset Management chief economist Philippe Waechter estimated.

Following the disappearance of Flight 370, Malaysia Airlines finds itself locked in a struggle for survival, The Wall Street Journal reported. The jet that vanished March 8 has triggered an anguished and seemingly unending wait for relatives and friends of the 239 people aboard. For the airline itself, a collateral effect has been to worsen finances that were already precarious, pressured by a wave of low-cost competition. Malaysia Airlines had a loss of 1.17 billion ringgit, or $359 million, last year.

The onetime Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista has begun his formal defense against the insider-trading allegations brought by Brazil’s main securities regulator, the C.V.M., the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Federal prosecutors in the country are also investigating Mr. Batista’s actions. But Mr. Batista’s ultimate saving grace may be that no one in Brazil has ever gone to jail for insider trading, and lawyers say that is unlikely to change now. Based on the track record of previous cases, the worst outcome Mr. Batista probably faces is a fine. Ever since Mr.

Russia’s first-quarter economic growth slowed to the weakest in a year as the standoff against the U.S. and its allies over Ukraine shrivels up investment. Gross domestic product advanced 0.9 percent in January-March from a year earlier after a 2 percent gain in the previous quarter, the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service said in an e-mailed statement, providing its first estimate of first-quarter GDP. That was above the 0.7 percent median estimate of 19 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The Economy Ministry had projected that output expanded 0.8 percent.