Headlines

State-owned conglomerate Dubai World edged closer to a second major restructuring in four years on Monday after announcing it had reached agreement with a "substantial majority" of creditors to back its $14.6 billion debt deal, Reuters reported. However, despite having enough backing to effectively prevent challenges to its new deal, a relatively untested court process to impose it will mean formal completion is still months away.

The Russian central bank’s net currency interventions in 2014 amounted to $76.13 billion and €5.41 billion, Interfax news agency reported on Monday, citing central bank data, the Irish Times reported. Interventions in the month of December amounted to $11.9 billion. The bank intervened heavily last year as the rouble slumped because of international tensions over the Ukraine crisis and plummeting prices for oil, Russia’s main export. The Russian rouble opened more than 2 per cent lower against the dollar on Monday, dragged down by flagging oil prices.

Bonds issued by Kaisa Group rose sharply on Tuesday after the embattled Chinese property developer said it had received a waiver from HSBC Holdings on a loan it failed to repay late last month. Kaisa, which has been struggling with the departure of senior executives, government officials blocking sales at some of its projects in the southern city of Shenzhen and a missed coupon payment on an offshore bond, made the announcement late on Monday. Market participants are watching Kaisa closely as it could become the first Chinese company to make an outright default on its offshore U.S.

Japanese corporate bankruptcies fell in 2014 to the lowest level since the final year of Japan’s asset bubble, as a government request for banks to alter loan conditions for smaller firms helped companies stay afloat, Bloomberb News reported. Business failures slid 10.4 percent in 2014 from a year earlier to 9,731 cases, the fewest since 1990, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. There were no bankruptcies among listed firms last year for the first time in 24 years.

Australians are experiencing fewer financial crises, new personal insolvency statistics have revealed, The Adviser reported. There were 6,888 personal insolvency incidents in the December 2014 quarter, according to the Australian Financial Security Authority. That marked an 8.1 per cent decline on the December 2013 quarter. Debt agreements climbed 2.5 per cent to 2,655, with South Australia and the Northern Territory reaching all-time highs.

The highly critical judgment in the bankruptcy trial of former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm has been passed to the office of the US Trustee, which can refer the judge’s findings to the department of justice and recommend criminal charges on perjury and fraud, the Irish Times reported.

While Australia’s commodities boom was running hot, it wasn’t only mining companies that benefited from the billions of dollars in investment pouring into the country. Airlines got a boost, too, The Wall Street Journal reported. That has changed as slumping commodity prices and reduced investment prompt fewer builders and pit-workers to travel to remote mine sites. The result: several operators of smaller aircraft, such as lightweight jets and turboprops, are going bust, while others are warning of a severe hit to profits.

Uncertainty over the law, inexperienced judges and a total lack of precedent have made bankruptcy in Cambodia a decidedly worrisome proposition, The Phnom Penh Post reported. Two years ago yesterday, on January 9, 2013, telecommunications operator MFone filed for insolvency in the Phnom Penh courts. The failure of the company, which had run up too much debt and could no longer compete in the crowded telco sector, left more than 1,000 workers jobless - many of whom hit the streets in protest.

Cyprus has suspended operations at its flag carrier after the European Commission ordered the struggling airline to pay back over 65 million euros in illegal state aid, Reuters reported. The last Cyprus Airways flight will take place Friday night, government officials said. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Cyprus Airways had no chance of becoming viable without continued state subsidies, meaning money paid out in 2012 and 2013 as part of a restructuring package would have to be recovered. The restructuring plan was "based on unrealistic assumptions" the EU Commission said.

Victims of the Lac-Megantic oil-by-rail disaster that killed 47 people in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2013 agreed to a nearly $200 million settlement with some of the firms involved, including the insolvent rail operator at the center of the tragedy, a lawyer for the victims said on Friday. Montreal Maine and Atlantic (MMA), along with its insurers, founder Edward Burkhardt, and various other companies, will pay into the settlement fund, which will be distributed to the victims of the train derailment and explosion, lawyer Peter Flowers of Meyers & Flowers in Chicago told Reuters.