Headlines

Target Corp will exit the Canadian market after less than two years in a surprise retreat that will throw more than 17,000 employees out of work and trigger a $5.4 billion quarterly loss. Shares of the U.S. discount retailer, which was granted creditor protection for its money-losing Canadian subsidiary, at one point rose more than 4 percent on the move. The stock was up 2.2 percent at $75.94 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

China’s 40m public sector employees are to lose their exemption from paying into the state pension system, as the government looks to curb public outrage over excess benefits for civil servants, the Financial Times reported. China’s dual-track urban pension system — in which corporate employees must contribute 8 per cent of their salary to the pension system but government employees contribute nothing — has been a source of populist outrage for years. The State Council, China’s cabinet, on Wednesday announced a long-awaited plan that will move to equalise the two systems.

The proposed end of insolvency litigation’s exemption from the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act (LAPSO) has been challenged by an Early Day Motion tabled in Parliament, Credit Today reported. MP’s have thrown their support for a review of the decision to end the exemption before the Act comes into force in April, with 22 signatures of support recorded as of 14 January, primarily from the Labour party. Giles Frampton, president of insolvency trade body R3, has also supported the proposal.

The Cabinet yesterday gave the nod to the fourth of five government bills comprising a package of bankruptcy-related legislation, The Cyprus Mail reported. Collectively known as the insolvency framework, the bills are designed to update and amend personal and corporate bankruptcy laws to help borrowers restructure their debt. Enactment of the new legislation, designed primarily to reduce banks’ exposure to bad loans, is an obligation stemming from Cyprus’ bailout agreement with international lenders. Three other bills have already been submitted to the House.

Rising failures in China’s peer-to-peer lending industry may pressure authorities to regulate a segment of Internet finance that almost quadrupled in size last year, Bloomberg News reported. The number of platforms that went bankrupt or had difficulty repaying money climbed to 275 in 2014 from 76 a year earlier, according to Yingcan Group, which tracks China’s more than 1,500 online lending sites. Last month, police started investigating the originator of two Sina Corp. wealth products for illegal fundraising.

A court opinion issued on Wednesday makes it all but certain that the European Central Bank will announce a major round of economic stimulus next week, after months of contentious internal debate, the International New York Times reported. But much mystery remains about how the bank will deploy quantitative easing — buying government bonds on a large scale to pump money into the economy. The central bank still needs to decide the amount and the mix of bonds, including whether riskier nations such as Greece should be avoided.

Austria's parliament launched an investigation on Wednesday into defunct lender Hypo Alpe Adria, seeking to assign blame for the country's worst postwar financial scandal that has soured ties with Bavaria, Reuters reported. Making use of new powers for opposition parties to demand such probes, parliament is due to call several high-profile figures to testify on Hypo's spectacular rise, near-collapse and role in increasing state debt and the budget deficit.

Finland has emerged as the biggest stumbling block to negotiating a new bailout deal with an incoming Greek government, telling its eurozone partners that it will not support debt forgiveness and is reluctant to back another extension of the €172bn rescue, the Financial Times reported. In an interview, Finland’s prime minister said he would give a “resounding no” to any move to forgive Greece’s debts and warned that a new government in Athens would have to stick to the terms of the existing bailout.

Canada’s biggest banks are trying to quell investor concern about their exposures to the energy sector given the plunge in oil prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bank stocks have taken a beating on those worries with the S&P/TSX Composite Bank Index down about 8% year-to-date as of Wednesday afternoon, amid broader concerns about the potential impact on the Canadian economy of a prolonged slump in energy prices.

The number of people using the Insolvency Service of Ireland has increased dramatically in recent months while the number of banks blocking debt settlement deals appears to be falling. According to new figures released by the agency the number of Personal Insolvency Arrangements dealing with debts including mortgage debt approved in the last three months of 2014 increased by 148 per cent over the three preceding months and exceeded the previous three quarters combined, the Irish Times reported.