Headlines

Quebecor Inc. is showing interest in purchasing struggling wireless startup Mobilicity, a move that could potentially change Canada’s national wireless landscape at a time of faltering competition, The Globe and Mail reported. Bank of Nova Scotia analyst Jeff Fan said in a research note that the Montreal company signed a non-disclosure agreement with Mobilicity ahead of a key spectrum auction that began on Tuesday, suggesting it may harbour ambitions of securing more wireless licences outside its home market of Quebec.

Codere SA, the Spanish gaming company in talks to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of debt, won’t make an interest payment on its bonds, according to a filing, BloombergBusinessweek reported. The company had 30 days grace period to make a 31 million-euro interest payment on its 8.25 percent bonds initially due Dec. 15. A default on the 760 million euros of bonds may give holders the right to demand immediate repayment. Codere continues negotiations with bondholders to restructure its debt, the Madrid-based company said in the statement.

Spain’s property sector is still struggling to recover from a half-decade downturn, according to figures showing that home sales dropped by 16 per cent in November compared with the same month in 2012, the Irish Times reported. Just under 22,000 homes were sold during that month, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported yesterday, the second-biggest year-on-year dip since the economic crisis started to bite in 2008. It was also 4.1 per cent fewer homes than the previous month.

Iceland is losing patience with creditors in its failed banks as the government considers forcing through bankruptcy proceedings to help it exit capital control in place since 2008, Bloomberg News reported. “The Bankruptcy Act doesn’t anticipate that attempts to seek composition last forever,” Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson said in a Jan. 10 interview in Reykjavik.

The German state of Bavaria may offer insolvent bookseller Weltbild financial backing to try to avert thousands of job losses, a newspaper cited Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer as saying, Reuters reported. There are a number of options ranging "from debt guarantees to bridge financing", the Sueddeutsche Zeitung quoted Seehofer as saying on Monday. Weltbild, owned by the Roman Catholic Church and which has 6,300 employees, filed for insolvency on Friday after failing to keep up with competition from Internet-savvy rivals such as Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and to obtain new financing.

The European Central Bank is concerned that national differences in how bad debt is classified could cripple its probe into the health of euro-area banks, according to an internal ECB document, Bloomberg News reported. Bad-debt classification practices across Europe show “material differences that, if not considered, would severely affect the consistency and credibility of the exercise,” according to the undated document obtained by Bloomberg News. A person familiar with the text said it was drawn up in late November and contains the ECB’s latest thinking on the subject.

European banks battered by the downturn in the shipping market face a tough 2014: the European Central Bank has vowed to make the sector a core focus of its upcoming asset quality review and stress tests, the Financial Times reported. Lenders – in particular German banks – are increasingly seeking innovative ways to reduce their shipping portfolios before the regulator takes over direct supervision of about 130 European banks at the end of the year. Yet there is a sticking point: bankers say it is not clear whether the more creative solutions will be approved under the new regime.

What the US Supreme Court decides in a key court case involving Argentina and its bondholders will greatly impact how sovereign debt restructuring is done in the future, the BBC reported. The essence of the decade-long lawsuit between the country and a handful of its creditors is: Can bondholders demand full repayment of what they lent to a country even when others have settled for a haircut? Argentina's 2002 default of around $100bn (£61bn) was the largest at the time, until Greece's around 200bn euros debt restructuring.

The board of Permanent TSB is targeting a return to profitability for its “good bank” retail arm by 2016 and a full or part-return to private ownership by “2017 or earlier”. It also plans to begin deleveraging non-core assets this year, the Irish Times reported. The plans have emerged from an investor presentation given on January 7th by chief executive Jeremy Masding and group treasurer Kieran Bristow.

German wind park operator Prokon has warned that it may have to file for insolvency if it is unable to strike a deal with investors who bought its profit-participation certificates, Reuters reported. "If we do not succeed - together with you, our investors - to stabilise the liquidity position very quickly, we will likely be obliged to initiate a self-administered insolvency plan at the end of January," Prokon said on its website on Saturday.