Headlines

A total of 116 Irish companies collapsed in May, a 25 per cent fall compared with the same month last year. A total of 609 corporate insolvencies were recorded in the first five months of 2013, according to figures compiled by Kavanagh Fennell’s insolvencyjournal.ie website. This compares with 742 from January to May 2012, a fall of 18 per cent, the Irish Times reported. Leinster was the worst affected province, accounting for 68 per cent of corporate insolvencies in May, followed by Munster with 18 per cent, Connaught with 9 per cent and Ulster with 5 per cent.

Hidroelectrica SA, Romania’s state-owned hydro-power producer and largest energy producer in the country will exit the insolvency procedure on July 1 this year, according to the Minister Delegate for Energy, Constantin Niţă, Romania-Insider.com reported. “We will promote professional management as it was done for all the state – owned companies, then we will list 10 percent on the stock exchange. We will set a list of priorities because there are a lot of investments that were started.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has foreclosed a 38-year-old rural bank that caters mostly to small and medium-scale enterprises in Bulacan, due to insolvency, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. The BSP has placed the Cooperative Rural Bank of Bulacan (CRBB) under receivership of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Co. (PDIC) since May 24. Affected are CRBB’s main office here and its branches in 13 towns and cities in the province. The Inquirer learned that CRBB had a P79-million debt to the Small Business Guarantee and Finance Corp.

Home buyers and investors are turning their backs on Mexico's low-income housing darlings, bringing a government-fueled boom that lasted more than a decade to a screeching halt. Scores of new homes in far-flung communities sit empty, while banks have canceled credit lines to some of the country's biggest housing companies, The Wall Street Journal reported. Homebuilders Urbi Desarrollos Urbanos SAB and Corporación Geo SAB, after luring more than $1 billion in foreign capital via overseas bond sales, skipped debt payments in April while they attempt to stave off bankruptcy.

The EU Commission has urged the Government to confront a re-emergence of lax lending standards in the banking system, warning in a new report that it sees fresh signs of bad practice in some lenders, the Irish Times reported. The commission expressed concern about the banks, which have received more than €60 billion in State aid, as it said the proceeds of the deal to scrap the Anglo Irish Bank promissory note scheme should be used to pay down debt.

Germany's job market may be the envy of a struggling Europe, but many Germans say their country's so-called Jobwunder has passed them by, The Wall Street Journal reported. Germany's unemployment rate was unchanged for the seventh straight month at a relatively low 6.9% in May, after seasonal adjustment. Yet nearly one in five working Germans, or about 7.4 million people, hold a "minijob," a form of marginal employment that allows someone to earn up to €450 ($580) a month free of tax.

The European Commission slowed the pace of austerity in the eurozone on Wednesday, but warned the bloc was still unlikely to produce solid economic growth in the near term and urged governments to steel themselves against possible loss of social and political support for reform efforts, the Financial Times reported. Unveiling a highly anticipated evaluation of all 27 EU members’ budget plans, Brussels warned that social safety nets were fraying and poverty was rising dangerously in many parts of Europe as efforts to combat growing unemployment faltered.

The behaviour of liquidators is set to come under greater scrutiny from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement as the number of company failures remains at a high level, the Irish Times reported. New ODCE director Ian Drennan said yesterday he would consider prosecutions in cases where liquidators failed to comply with their statutory reporting obligations. Liquidators of companies that are in insolvent liquidation are obliged under the Company Law Enforcement Act 2001 to report to the office on the company’s demise.

Five years after the global financial crisis, South Korean construction workers are feeling the pinch more than ever as they shoulder a mountain of debt from a real estate bust that has cast a long shadow on the country's growth prospects, Reuters reported. Facing the spectre of bankruptcy, some construction firms persuaded their staff to take up loans to mop up unsold apartments. "There was pressure. There's nowhere else in the world where there's a parallel to these practices," said a construction worker, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

A rise in “zombie debtors” – people paying only the interest charges on their debt and not the debt itself – is masking the difficulties faced by many households in the UK, according to insolvency experts, the Financial Times reported. RSM Tenon, the accountancy group, has revealed a fall in personal insolvencies so far this year and says the figures point towards a reduction for 2013, to levels last seen in 2005.