Headlines

Dubai government-owned property developer Limitless has secured the agreement of 85 percent of its creditors for a three-month extension to a debt repayment due at the end of 2014 and for a proposed restructuring plan, its chairman said, Reuters reported. Limitless is looking to obtain the support of 100 percent of creditors to the extension and restructuring plan for its $1.2 billion debt, Ali Rashid Lootah told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s finance minister said Wednesday the government hopes to start debt negotiations with creditors next month after it completes a deal on an expanded emergency-loan package with the International Monetary Fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Once we’ve come to an agreement with the IMF on the program, we will invite our sovereign creditors to consult with us on how we can work together to improve the medium term debt sustainability of the country,” Ukraine Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko said in an interview.

The National Asset Management Agency made a loss of €292.9 million on the disposal of various debtor loans in the first nine months of last year, according to its latest set of unaudited accounts, the Irish Times reported. It is understood that this relates to the sale of a large portfolio of assets in Northern Ireland last year, which resulted in a loss being booked. However, the State agency made a profit of €150 million on the sale of property assets to leave it with a net loss on disposals in the nine months to the end of September 2014 of €143 million.

The co-founder of Russian-owned broker Alpari applied a year ago to wind up the parent company of its retail FX brokerage Alpari UK, fearing long before the company's collapse from trading losses last week that it "was doomed". Andrey Dashin, whose website lists him as "the Chairman of the Board of Directors and co-owner of the Alpari brand", said he lodged a winding-up petition for Alpari UK parent company Alpari Group Limited with a Cypriot court on Jan. 28, 2014.

The European Central Bank’s executive board proposed buying roughly €50 billion ($58 billion) a month in bonds for at least a year, according to people familiar with the matter, but markets largely shrugged as investors pondered whether the ECB will do enough to stoke Europe’s fragile economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The board’s proposal for the bond-purchase program, known as quantitative easing or QE, forms the basis of deliberations by the entire 25-member governing council on Thursday on whether to embark on a path already forged by the U.S. and the U.K.

Forecasting a major economic slowdown in the face of lower oil prices, the Bank of Canada unexpectedly cut its key lending rate on Wednesday, the International New York Times reported. The central bank reduced the overnight rate to 0.75 percent, from 1 percent. It is the first rate change since September 2010. The move comes as Canada deals with the consequences of lower oil prices, which are now around $48 a barrel. In recent weeks, domestic companies have announced a flurry of spending cuts and layoffs.

China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 24 years in 2014 as property prices cooled and companies and local governments struggled under heavy debt burdens, keeping pressure on Beijing to take aggressive steps to avoid a sharper downturn, the Irish Times reported. For investors worried about growth in China and the world this year, the data poses two questions: Will the soft numbers and expectations of further weakness force the central bank to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into banks system-wide to prop up growth?

Swedish oil and gas firm PA Resources will write down the value of its assets by 2.1 billion Swedish crowns ($258.6 mln) due to the plunge in oil prices and may be forced to go into liquidation, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. "The loss arising from the impairment charge will most likely result in the company's shareholders' equity being less than one-half of the registered share capital. As a consequence, the company's board of directors has resolved to prepare a balance sheet for liquidation purposes," PA said.

Demand for mortgage loans increased in the final quarter of last year ahead of expected new stricter lending rules, the Irish Times reported. According to the Central Bank bank’s latest quarterly lending survey, the potential introduction of stricter loan-to-value criteria resulted in “an acceleration of demand”. However, the survey, which examines credit market conditions for households and businesses, the strength of the reported increase in demand was lower than the record level reported in the third quarter.

Spain’s residential real-estate recovery is a tale of two cities: Madrid and Barcelona, The Wall Street Journal reported. Barcelona is the only city in Spain to post an annual increase in home prices during 2014. Prices in the city rose 2.8%, with some neighborhoods gaining as much as 8%. Madrid, too, has fared better than most. While it hasn’t enjoyed price gains, Madrid’s decline of 4.9% last year was better than the 5.7% drop for Spain overall, according to fotocasa.es, a Spanish property website.