Headlines

The cash-strapped Land Conservancy of British Columbia has decided to reduce its debt load by selling a historic property in a deal that could see it once again become a working farm, Metro News reported on a Canadian Press story. Land Conservancy manager John Shields says officials are nearing completion of a deal to sell Keating Farm, located about 60 kilometres north of Victoria near Duncan, for nearly $750,000. He says the prospective buyer is pledging to restore the site to a working farm.

Ssangyong Engineering & Construction (E&C) has filed for court protection as its creditors refused to finance the cash-strapped builder, the Seoul-based company said Monday, The Korea Times reported. Ssangyong E&C said it held a board meeting Monday afternoon to ask the Seoul Central District Court to lead a debt-rescheduling program after one of its major creditors, the Military Mutual Aid Association, raised an objection to additional financial support to it.

The UK arm of the business operated by Irish builder Gerry Gannon – whose Irish loans are being managed by Nama – returned to profit in 2012 after securing debt write-offs and the transfer of bank loans, the Irish Times reported. Gannon Homes (UK) Ltd recorded a profit of £6.875 million (€8.3 million) after assigning the company’s bank loans and overdrafts totalling £24.9 million to third-party investors and writing off £1 million owed by the firm to Irish-based Gannon Homes Ltd.

Sri Lanka’s central bank cut one key interest rate while holding another after inflation eased to the lowest level in about two years, ignoring advice from the International Monetary Fund to hold off on further easing, Bloomberg News reported. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka reduced the benchmark reverse repurchase rate, which it renamed the standing lending facility rate, by 50 basis points to 8 percent, Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said in an interview in Colombo on Dec. 31.

When Brazilian oil firm OGX tried to tap bond markets for $2 billion in 2011, investors were ready to hand it $5.5 billion. Two years on, OGX is in default and the debt trades at less than 10 cents of its original face value, Reuters reported. The spectre of such defaults spreading across emerging markets has not yet dimmed investor enthusiasm for the corporate debt sector, which saw record-high bond sales of $330 billion-plus in 2013 and more than 150 first-time borrowers.

China's largest auto parts company made a surprise bid for Fisker Automotive just days before the bankrupt maker of the Karma plug-in hybrid sports car was to be sold to a Hong Kong tycoon, according to court documents, Reuters reported. Fisker creditors asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, to scrap Fisker's agreed sale to a company affiliated with Richard Li and instead hold an open auction at which auto parts supplier Wanxiang America Corp plans to bid.

Chennai-based Consolidated Construction Consortium Ltd (CCCL) has applied for the Corporate Debt Restructuring Scheme. "The necessary application for the same is being filed with CDR cell for its approval," the company said in a filing to the exchanges, the Business Standard reported. R Sarabeswar, chairman and chief executive officer of CCCL, did not offer a comment when contacted. Several infrastructure projects, including Chennai Metro, have been delayed due to various reasons affecting the company's balance sheet, according to industry sources.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, named on Monday to head the committee overseeing China's economic overhaul, must quickly figure out how to keep China's burgeoning local government debt from tanking the world's second-largest economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shortly before the announcement of Mr. Xi's new job, China's National Audit Office said debt and guarantees issued by local governments rocketed 67% to 17.9 trillion yuan ($2.95 trillion) midyear 2013 since the last tally at the end of 2010, when it was 10.7 trillion yuan.

Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista's Oleo e Gas Participacoes SA risks losing its 40 percent stake in the Atlanta and Oliva fields in Brazil's Santos Basin for failure to pay its share of development costs, its partner, QGEP Participações SA, said on Monday. Oleo e Gas, formerly known as OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA, has been ordered to show its financial obligations in the fields, part of the BS-4 offshore concession, are up to date, according to a note from Brazil's oil regulator ANP, dated Dec. 23, QGEP said in a securities filing, Reuters reported.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will tell Germans their fate is so closely entwined with the European Union that it is imperative to come up with answers on how to permanently resolve the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis, Reuters reported. In an advance text of the traditional New Year's Eve address that she will deliver on Tuesday evening, Merkel said Germany had a lot of work to do to maintain its own economic strength.