Headlines

German companies have joined opposition to the introduction of a tax on financial transactions in Europe, warning of severe damage to businesses in the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Blue-chip companies, including Bayer and Siemens, said they faced tens of millions of euros in costs from the tax and complained of burdens such as lower returns on the pension schemes they run for employees.

The Central Bank has published a new plan aimed at helping those in financial distress but who do not qualify for personal insolvency, the Irish Times reported. The pilot scheme will “enhance co-operation between lenders of secured and unsecured debt in order to fairly resolve distressed debt for the borrower”, according to the bank. It is understood the scheme will in some cases include a write-down of some debt. “Restructuring by lenders will be necessary to deal with many different indebtedness scenarios”, the bank adds in a document published on its website this afternoon.

IVG Immobilien AG, the German company that plans to restructure 4 billion euros ($5 billion) of debt, said its first-quarter loss widened as the value of its properties fell, Bloomberg reported. The net loss swelled to 45.1 million euros from 4.6 million euros a year earlier, the company said in a statement today. The value of IVG’s properties dropped by 42.5 million euros. IVG, once Germany’s largest commercial property company by market value, has shed about 96 percent of its share price since 2008 following a series of writedowns in its property values and difficulties repaying debt.

Brazilian regulators want to speed up a plan to pull power holding company Grupo Rede Energia SA out of bankruptcy protection in an effort to avert service disruptions. Administrators assigned to keep Rede Energia's companies running during the bankruptcy process are running out of funds, which could compromise basic upkeep and lead to spotty service, Edvaldo Santana, head of energy regulator Aneel said on Tuesday. The process should be concluded ahead of a court-mandated deadline in July, sources had told Reuters in late March.

The euro zone's new bank supervisor will closely review the quality of lenders' assets before taking on responsibility for overseeing the institutions, a top euro-zone official said Tuesday. It was the first time a top-level official has publicly discussed such a review, The Wall Street Journal reported. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who heads the group of euro-zone finance ministers, said an "asset-quality review," which would examine the health of banks' balance sheets, might uncover "worrying" issues in some lenders.

With more than 23,000 companies in Romania having gone under in 2012, the government unveiled plans in April to overhaul to insolvency law in a bid to streamline procedures and track down firms that are going insolvent in a bid to avoid paying their creditors, Balkans.com reported. Romanian PM Victor Ponta said in April that the law needs to be changed in order to support companies that operate in good faith.

Deposits of over €100,000 are likely to be hit in the event of future European bank collapses, according to a proposal put forward by the Irish presidency of the European Council ahead of a key meeting of finance ministers next week, the Irish Times reported. Discussions on the controversial bank resolution regime, which is likely to see savers with deposits over €100,000 “bailed in” as part of future bank wind-downs, are due to intensify this week in Brussels, ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, which will be chaired by Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble signalled a softer stance on European banking union on Tuesday, saying that rather than waiting for a treaty change, governments should coordinate policies on closing banks, Reuters reported. A banking union is critical to Europe's efforts to overcome the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis. A first step involves creating a Europe-wide banking supervisor under the European Central Bank, to be followed by a scheme for bank resolution - closing or salvaging struggling banks.

A Northern Ireland company which owns one of Belfast’s iconic pubs has been placed into administration. John Hansen and Stuart Irwin of KPMG were appointed Monday to Botanic Inns and its parent company Kurkova Limited, which owns 16 outlets including the flagship pub the Botanic Inn, or “The Bot”, as it is known locally. The joint administrators say it is their intention that the venues, which employ 600 people in the greater Belfast area, will continue to trade as normal. Botanic Inns, which was originally a family business, dates back to 1857.

The Brazilian government, concerned about systemic risk in the rapid growth of banking assets, will propose legislation to make shareholders, bondholders and depositors pay for rescuing troubled banks and shield taxpayers from the cost of bailouts, Reuters reported.