Headlines

The Co-operative Group has announced plans to sell its farms business and is considering a sale of its pharmacy chain as it faces a reported loss of more than £2bn, The Guardian reported. Britain's biggest mutually owned company, which is preparing for its worst ever loss according to a BBC report on Wednesday morning, considers the farming business – the biggest in the UK – to be peripheral to its main activities and in need of investment.

The heads of Austria's two ruling parties on Tuesday backed the idea of letting a commission of experts look into the 2009 emergency nationalisation of lender Hypo Alpe Adria, a step that could head off a parliamentary investigation of the deal, Reuters reported. The takeover of Hypo from Bavarian state bank BayernLB and other owners staved off a collapse that would have sent shock waves across the region a year after Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers went down. But Hypo's mounting costs have made it a huge headache for the ruling Social Democrats and conservative People's Party.

Bidders for the 13,000 former Irish Nationwide home loans put up for sale by IBRC’s special liquidators will voluntarily sign up to a code of practice that protects borrowers whose mortgages are in arrears if they are successful, the Irish Times reported. However, one lobby group says that the deal announced late yesterday, does not go far enough and has pledged to go ahead with a protest outside Leinster House today when the liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG appear before the Oireachtas Joint Finance Committee.

Ukraine is weighing measures to stem cash withdrawals after as much as 7 percent of deposits were taken from banks during last week’s bloody uprising, underscoring the need for action to fend off a default, Bloomberg News reported. Withdrawals peaked with as much as 30 billion hryvnias ($3.1 billion) Feb. 18-20 as police and anti-government demonstrators fought in the center of Kiev, Natsionalnyi Bank Ukrainy Governor Stepan Kubiv, 51, appointed Feb. 24, said yesterday in his first interview.

There is a small risk that Ukraine may default on $3 billion in Eurobonds that Russia recently acquired, Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Tuesday. "We probably have risks, but not so big ones," he said. "It's possible to begin with the fact that the debtor has a difficult financial situation, that it can't return the money to us in two years." Storchak added that while the possibility existed of substituting one instrument for another, he was opposed to including Ukraine's debt to Russia in a general restructuring. "This wouldn't be right.

Poland’s prime minister said Tuesday he’s concerned that if given money now Ukraine would use it to pay the debts it owes to Russia rather than to initiate reforms as it seeks to build a new system of government, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. “There’s concern the money that would be given to Ukraine now would go through it as a transit country. It would be ironic if Europe and the West helped only to see this money paying debts owed to Russia. Debts must be paid, of course, but this is not why we want to organize help for Ukraine,” Donald Tusk told reporters.

Royal Bank of Scotland has received approval from Treasury agency UK Financial Investments to pay about 550 million pounds ($920 million) in staff bonuses for 2013, Sky News reported late on Tuesday. The news service said the bank is expected to disclose the proposed bonuses when it announces its annual earnings, estimated at a loss of about 8 billion pounds.

The Greek government and its bailout lenders are locked in a new stand-off over the health of Greece’s banking sector, with Athens contending its financial system requires less than €6bn of new capital, while international monitors insist it needs at least three times that amount, the Financial Times reported.

Germany's IVG Immobilien , the co-owner of London's landmark "Gherkin" tower brought low by debts and cost over-runs, has proposed a debt-for-equity swap that will put the real estate firm in the hands of its creditors. IVG, which owns the Gherkin tower with Evans Randall Ltd, sought protection from creditors in August after failing to reach an agreement over the restructuring of its debt and on Monday filed an insolvency plan to a court in Bonn, Germany.

Insolvent German television maker Loewe is looking for a new partner to salvage the company after a group of investors said they wanted to pull out of a deal to purchase some of its assets and keep the brand going, Reuters reported. A group of investors, including a former senior manager at Apple and Bang & Olufsen, said in January they would buy Loewe's core television business for an undisclosed price. But Loewe said on Monday the investors had informed it of plans to withdraw from the contract.