Headlines

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc will scoop up bankrupt cancer vaccine maker Dendreon Corp, after no additional qualified bids came forward by Tuesday's deadline, Valeant said. A potential buyer dropped from the bidding process, three sources close to the sale told Reuters earlier. Valeant, of Laval, Quebec, will get Seattle-based Dendreon's Provenge cancer treatment and other assets for $400 million in cash. Dendreon and Valeant will seek court approval of the sale on Feb. 20, Valeant said. It expects to close the deal by the end of this month.

Hoping to defuse a standoff that has set Europe and financial markets on edge, Greek officials intend to propose a detailed compromise plan at an emergency meeting with creditors on Wednesday in Brussels, a finance ministry official here said on Monday. The plan will include the possibility of tapping part of a bailout loan disbursement of 7 billion euros, or $7.9 billion, that Athens had been saying it would reject, according to the official, who insisted on anonymity because the plans had not yet been made public, the International New York Times reported.

British bank HSBC Holdings Plc admitted failings by its Swiss subsidiary in response to media reports it helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which coordinated the reporting, said a list of people who held HSBC accounts in Switzerland included soccer and tennis professionals, rock stars and Hollywood actors. Reuters could not independently verify any of the names listed by the ICIJ. Having a Swiss bank account is not illegal and many are held for legitimate purposes.

Elvira S. Nabiullina, the governor of Russia’s central bank, was deep into a speech about her new currency policy when it became clear nobody was paying attention. Her audience, chief Russia economists from a dozen or so foreign banks, were looking down at their laps to nervously check their smartphones. The ruble, which had been slowly slipping after a predawn interest rate increase by the central bank, had just plunged 19 percent.

Ireland will insist that any new or better deal secured by Greece will also apply to Ireland, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has said, the Irish Times reported. Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday ruled out requesting an extension of the Greek bailout when meeting his European counterparts at a summit in Brussels this week. Rather than an extension of the bailout when it expires on February 28th, Mr Tsipras reiterated his demand for a bridge programme to tide the country over until June, when a more long-standing loan arrangement can be established.

The idea that China can borrow indefinitely in order to prop up growth simply doesn't wash, Bloomberg View reported in an analysis. In a new report on the world's growing debt glut, McKinsey highlights three huge risks: unsustainably high government borrowing, households in over their heads and China. The mainland earns its singular position because of another trio of concerns: too much debt concentrated in real estate; the scale and complexity of its shadow-banking entities; and rampant off-balance sheet borrowing by local governments.

With their store leases up for grabs, major Target Canada landlords are suggesting the insolvent discounter be pushed into all-out bankruptcy as a way to remove the retailer from controlling the lease sales and other wind-down proceedings, The Globe and Mail reported. The landlords’ Target leases could fetch $1.8-billion to $2-billion, according to one analyst. But under the current court-monitored insolvency process, the auctioning of their leases is essentially being run by the departing retailer.

As pressure grows on Greece to reach a deal with its international creditors and avert fears that it will default on its huge debt, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Sunday that his government would not seek an extension of a stringent bailout program and would carry out its campaign pledges to roll back austerity, but gradually, the International New York Times reported. In laying out his government’s program in a speech before Parliament, Mr.

In a related story, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.K. government is stepping up contingency planning to prepare for a possible Greek exit from the eurozone and the market instability such a move would create, U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne said on Sunday. A spokeswoman for the Treasury declined comment on the details of the contingency planning. The U.K. government has said the standoff between Greece’s new antiausterity government and the eurozone is increasing the risks to the global and U.K. economy.

The Swiss National Bank ’s decision to scrap its cap on the franc’s value will weigh on the Alpine country’s economy and could lead to one or two quarters of contraction, the head of the central bank, Thomas Jordan, said Saturday. The Zurich-based SNB stunned financial markets last month when it abandoned its 3½-year-old cap for the franc-euro, sending the Swiss stock market plunging and pushing the franc sharply higher, The Wall Street Journal reported. The SNB had no option but to exit its minimum exchange rate policy as “the international environment had changed,” Mr.