Headlines

A rented office overlooking a dusty rail track near Madrid’s airport was until recently the workplace of what would appear to be the most productive worker in all of Spain. From here a single employee presided over a company that from 2009 to 2011 made €9.9bn of net profits, all while earning an annual salary of only €55,000, the Financial Times reported.

The decision to liquidate IBRC could lead to “substantial savings” for the Government, the Fiscal Advisory Council has claimed, but it warned that the level of savings would depend on the market view of the country’s creditworthiness, the Irish Times reported. The Government decided in February to liquidate State-owned IBRC to reduce the annual cost of toxic lenders. Estimates at the time placed the annual savings at around €1 billion. However, the advisory committee said the gains from the move relative to the size of Government debt would be small.

The U.S. company whose runaway oil tanker train exploded and killed 47 people in a small Quebec town in July can operate trains through Oct. 18, Canadian regulators said on Thursday in a ruling that prolongs a temporary extension by about two weeks, Reuters reported. But the Canadian Transportation Agency said it had not yet decided whether to grant a request from Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and its Canadian subsidiary for permission to continue operations until Jan. 15, 2014. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in August, just weeks after the Lac-Megantic disaster.

A Romanian court has approved the insolvency request for construction company Alpine and appointed Casa de Insolvență Transilvania as judiciary administrator, Romania-Insider.com reported. The Romanian subsidiary of Austrian Alpine Bau Gmbh became insolvent after its parent company declared bankruptcy. It has also been affected by a drop in the construction sector on the Romanian market. In June 2013, Alpine Bau Gmbh, with a EUR 2.5 billion debt and a loss of EUR 450 million in 2012, went bankrupt.

New State-backed insolvency deals will fail to lift large numbers of people out of debt, the first academic study of the system has concluded. The findings come after accusations that the Insolvency Service has been set up mainly to benefit the professional classes, and is not for PAYE workers. Critics have charged that the new process is set to be a rescue-mechanism for those with buy-to-lets, after the head of the service admitted that broke families that have no income and no assets they can sell off will be unable to avail of the new deals.

Britain has sued the European Parliament and European Union member states over a controversial plan to cap bankers' bonuses, in a last-ditch effort to block the legislation before it enters into force next year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The legal challenge was filed with the EU's top court, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice, "in the past couple of months," the court's press division said Wednesday. It follows a series of victories for the U.K. over financial services legislation as the country seeks to claw back powers from Brussels. In its lawsuit, the U.K.

Punch Taverns’ attempt to restructure its £2.3bn net debt will take on a new urgency as looming deadlines focus the minds of bondholders and the company itself, according to the pub group’s executive chairman, the Financial Times reported. Punch said it remained hopeful of launching a consensual restructuring of its heavy debt burden this year, as it posted a 68 per cent drop in annual pre-tax profit. Stephen Billingham, executive chairman, said: “We now have a short runway. When you have a long runway, people don’t focus their mind.

Bermuda's Supreme Court ruled for the liquidation of Brazilian private-equity firm Laep Investments Ltd, in response to a reuqest by an investment fund, according to a securities filing on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Laep, which is based in Bermuda but mostly operated from its offices in São Paulo, has been under strain in recent years after some of its main investments - including milk producer LBR Lácteos do Brasil SA and high-end luxury retailer Daslú - failed to produce the expected returns.

The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee, formed to spot budding crises, has its eye on the U.K.'s housing market, The Wall Street Journal reported. In its first public comments on real estate, the committee said Wednesday that it would be "vigilant" to potential risks as banks step up mortgage lending and house prices rise. Real estate has long been a hot topic on this property-conscious isle, but in the wake of a government report showing house prices in London rose nearly 10% in the year to July, it has risen to a boil.

Long-suffering shareholders of debt-laden junior gas producer Lone Pine Resources Inc. will be left with nothing under a deal struck with its noteholders to trade debt for stock, The Calgary Herald reported. The agreement announced Wednesday, which requires court approval, would result in shareholders having their stock cancelled without compensation while holders of the Calgary company’s debt instruments will wind up in full control.