Headlines

Japan's leading independent budget airline Skymark Airlines Inc filed for protection from creditors late on Wednesday, blaming a weak yen and a dispute with Airbus Group for its financial straits, Reuters reported. The low-cost carrier had liabilities of 71.09 billion yen ($603.6 million) as of its bankruptcy filing with the Tokyo District Court, it said in a statement via the Tokyo Stock Exchange after an emergency board meeting. Chief Executive Officer Shinichi Nishikubo resigned and was replaced by board member Masakazu Arimori, said the company, which will delist on March 1.

Greek bank shares suffered their worst one day loss on record on Wednesday, as anxiety grew over the new government’s plan to renegotiate Greece’s €240bn bailout, the Financial Times reported. The country’s four biggest lenders saw their stock prices plummet by an average of more than 25 per cent just two days after Alexis Tsipras, leader of leftwing party Syriza, was sworn in as prime minister. It was the third day of double-digit share slides for the banks.

Brazil's Petrobras has admitted it is so far unable to calculate how much money was stolen from the company in a vast corruption scandal that has shaken confidence in the world’s second-largest emerging market, the Financial Times reported. After two months of delays, the state-controlled oil producer finally published its unaudited financial statements for the third quarter of 2014 at just after 4am on Wednesday in Brazil to avoid breaking some of its debt covenants.

The main representative body for Irish banks has welcomed the Central Bank’s decision to ease its proposals on loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage limits for first-time buyers but cautioned it could have an impact on house building, the Irish Times reported. “While a 90 per cent loan to value for first-time buyers on the first €220,000 value of a property is welcome, the extent to which this will effectively accommodate first-time buyers, particularly in urban areas, is uncertain,” Banking & Payments Federation Ireland said.

At the start of a new year, the UAE’s lawyers, bankers, small business owners and, indeed, government officials, are still waiting for the country’s new insolvency bus – sorry, law –to arrive. But the signs are that after many years of standing at the bus stop and waiting, the legislation is getting closer to becoming a reality, The National reported in a commentary.

Chinese property developer Kaisa Group has appointed financial adviser Houlihan Lokey to formulate a plan that will be agreeable to all its creditors as the indebted company struggles with the risk of defaulting on its credit. The company failed earlier this month to make a $26 million interest payment on its bonds due to mature in 2020, and now has until Feb. 9 to pay that coupon or else become the first Chinese real estate firm to default on its offshore debt. Kaisa is grappling with a series of departures after some senior executives left unexpectedly.

It’s no secret what Yanis Varoufakis thinks Greece should do with its debt. The economics professor at the University of Athens, who announced his appointment as the country’s finance minister in a posting on his personal blog on Tuesday, has been arguing since the beginning of the crisis that Greece should default while staying a member of the euro area, the Irish Times reported. As well as on his website, Mr Varoufakis shares his opinions with 128,000 Twitter followers.

Germany’s finance minister said on Tuesday that Ukraine should start negotiations with its creditors on how to restructure its debts as part of a wider plan to stabilize the conflict-ridden country, The Wall Street Journal reported. Efforts by the international community, including the International Monetary Fund, to secure Ukraine’s financial needs “are linked to Ukraine also making efforts to talk to its creditors about an extension of maturities, so a kind of debt restructuring,” Wolfgang Schäuble said following talks with his European Union counterparts.

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. sought creditor protection in Canada for its Bloom Lake iron ore mine, potentially cutting the cost of closing it down, Bloomberg News reported. Bloom Lake General Partner Ltd. and certain affiliates started restructuring proceedings in Montreal under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, Cliffs said in a statement on Tuesday. Cliffs, the largest U.S. iron ore producer, has been looking at options to sell Bloom Lake for several months and said earlier this month it suspended production there amid a slump in prices.

A group of Canadian and other investments banks agreed to pay a total of 32.5 million Canadian dollars (US$26.1 million) to settle claims related to their role as underwriters to help Sino-Forest Corp. sell stock, The Wall Street Journal reported. The dealers “do not admit any wrongdoing or liability” under the agreement, which would settle shareholder allegations that Sino-Forest’s public filings “contained false and misleading statements about [its] financial results, assets, business and transactions,” according to a copy of the pact filed with the Ontario Superior court.