Headlines

Air France-KLM, the French-Dutch airline, said Thursday that it had written off the entire value of its 25 percent holding in its partner Alitalia, raising doubts that it will take part in a plan to inject 300 million euros into the struggling Italian flag carrier, The International New York Times reported.

OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações SA, the Brazilian oil company controlled by former billionaire Eike Batista, sought court protection from creditors on Wednesday in Latin America's largest-ever corporate bankruptcy filing, Reuters reported. The bankruptcy protection request, filed in a Rio de Janeiro court, came after OGX failed to reach an agreement with creditors to renegotiate part of its $5.1 billion debt load.

China’s top four banks posted their biggest increase in soured loans since at least 2010 as a five-year credit spree left companies with excess manufacturing capacity and slower profit growth amid an economic slowdown. Nonperforming loans at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp., Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. and Bank of China Ltd. rose 3.5 percent in the three months to Sept. 30 from June to a combined 329.4 billion yuan ($54 billion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg News based on third-quarter results. Profit rose to 209 billion yuan.

New caps on mortgage lending will soon come into force in the United Arab Emirates, part of a long-running effort by the country’s central bank to keep real estate markets in check and avoid a debt-fueled bubble. And not everybody’s happy, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. While the limits apply to all of the U.A.E.’s banks, they’re seen as largely aimed at Dubai, where a recent Standard Chartered report estimated apartment prices went up by about 38% year-on-year in October.

The Dutch financial services group ING said on Wednesday that it would pay 1.13 billion euros ($1.55 billion) to the Dutch government in November as it moves closer to repaying the state aid it received during the financial crisis, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. As of its next payment on Nov. 6, ING will have repaid €8.5 billion in principal of the €10 billion it received from the Dutch government in 2008, plus an additional €2.8 billion in interest and premiums.

Czech wagon manufacturer Legios filed for insolvency on October 28, owing around CKr 220m ($US 11.7m) the VUB bank and more than CKr 300m to other creditors, IRJ reported. The company suspended payments of obligations in June 2013, but has reportedly been in financial difficulty since 2010, when police launched a criminal investigation into allegations of tax evasion. It is claimed that Legios made a false purchase of wagon components worth CKr 588m in order to claim a VAT rebate of CKr 111m from the state.

Barclays is the latest bank to become embroiled in the global probe into suspected manipulation of currency rates in a setback for the lender’s attempts to improve its image following misconduct scandals, the Financial Times reported. The bank said on Wednesday it had launched an internal investigation into its foreign exchange trading operations. Its admission, disclosed in its third-quarter results statement, came a day after European lenders UBS and Deutsche Bank said they had also been drawn into the probe into the $4tn-a-day foreign exchange trading market.

Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista’s financial collapse is being reflected on the balance sheets of global suppliers to his oil company, Bloomberg reported. OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, controlled by the former billionaire, said in a statement today that it has cut payments to all but “critical” suppliers to its most promising field. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., Ensco Plc and Schlumberger Ltd. are among those paying the price.

The French government bowed to taxpayer anger Tuesday for the second time in three days by suspending a new levy on trucks, raising new questions about President François Hollande's strategy to fix public finances primarily through higher taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Following a weekend of violent clashes between police and farmers opposed to the new levy, the government said the so-called "eco-tax," which aimed to raise €1 billion ($1.37 billion) a year to finance more environmentally friendly transport, won't come into effect in January as planned.

Italy's minister of economic development, Flavio Zanonato, defended the record of Prime Minister Enrico Letta's government, pushing back at critics who say the young administration hasn't been ambitious enough in tackling Italy's myriad economic problems and has sent the wrong signal to foreign investors by pumping more money into near-bankrupt Alitalia, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Zanonato also said the government will launch a series of measures aimed at helping foreign companies invest in Italy, raising the number of startups and freeing more credit for small companies.