Headlines

For a bunch of people who just agreed the global economy is doing better, top officials from the world's rich and poor nations sound rather worried. For poor nations, the easy monetary policies in advanced economies are leading to big swings in capital flows that could destabilize emerging markets. For rich countries, the hoarding of currency by developing nations is blocking progress toward a more stable global economy.

Canadian payday loan provider Cash Store Financial Services Inc said on Monday it will seek protection from creditors as it faces liquidity problems resulting from the suspension of its right to offer loans in the province of Ontario, the Financial Post reported on a Reuters story. In February, the Edmonton, Alberta-based company said it was voluntarily delisting its shares from the New York Stock Exchange as its share price had plummeted and it could not meet the exchange’s listing requirements.

The Co-operative Group will highlight the urgency of sweeping governance reforms this week as it reveals the extent of its financial woes with a record £2bn-£2.5bn pre-tax loss, the Financial Times reported. The loss, set to be announced on Thursday, will cap a torrid 12 months for the mutual, saddled with high debt and facing a weakened management team after two senior directors quit. It includes a £1.3bn shortfall at the Co-op Bank, which the group owned in its entirety until a recapitalisation in December reduced its stake to 30 per cent.

The Adelaide company that 18 months ago became the first to face a board spill under the controversial 'two strikes' rule on executive pay has fallen into voluntary administration with debts of more than $100 million, Business Spectator reported on an Australian story. Penrice Soda Holdings appointed McGrathNichol as a voluntary administrator to allow the business to continue to trade and to achieve fresh financing to continue its turnaround strategy under chief executive Guy Roberts.

Properties formerly owned by building and engineering group Siac are to be sold after one of its banks took control of three companies split from the group earlier this year, the Irish Times reported. Bank of Scotland has appointed receivers Paul McCann and Stephen Tennant of Grant Thornton to three property-holding firms that formed part of Siac before its rescue from examinership in February by long-standing shareholders, the Feighery family, its directors and two other businesses.

Sirkka Hamalainen, Finland’s first female central bank governor and a founding member of the European Central Bank, is returning to the region’s highest policy circles to help reshape its banks, Bloomberg News reported. “The only thing which is still missing in the banking union structure is the question of how to deal with too-big-to-fail banks,” Hamalainen said in an interview in Helsinki on April 11, three weeks before taking up her role as a member of the ECB’s new Supervisory Board.

Punch Taverns, Britain’s second biggest pubs group, has brought in an independent corporate restructuring expert to aid long-running discussions over its £2.3bn debt mountain, The Telegraph reported. Dean Merritt, from Talbot Hughes McKillop, is representing the companies that issued Punch’s debt, amid hopes a deal that is agreeable to all lenders and shareholders can be thrashed out by the beginning of next month.

Strauss Innovation, a German chain of small department stores, has attracted several potential buyers after it sought court protection from creditors in January to try to rescue its business, a German magazine said on Saturday, quoting its administrator, Reuters reported. Andreas Ringstmeier told weekly WirtschaftsWoche some of the interested parties were financial investors with experience in retail industry and had already submitted their indicative bids.

Chinese importers have defaulted on at least 500,000 tonnes of U.S. and Brazilian soybean cargoes worth around $300 million, the biggest in a decade, as buyers struggle to get credit amid losses in processing beans. Three companies in the eastern province of Shandong had defaulted on payments for shipments as they were unable to open letters of credit with banks, trade sources said on Thursday. A string of defaults on loans, bonds and shadow banking products in recent weeks has highlighted rising credit risks in China, partly fuelled by signs the economy is slowing.

Empresas La Polar SA, Chile’s fourth-biggest department store operator, said it is planning to restructure debt for a second time following its 2011 default. La Polar, which defaulted on 493 billion pesos ($1.1 billion) of debt after revealing accounting irregularities at its in-house credit card operation, said in a filing to regulators that it will seek to meet with creditors as soon as possible. It had total debt of 207 billion pesos at the end of 2013, including 189 billion pesos of bonds, according to company financial statements.