Headlines

Iran's national gas company said it is facing collapse, the latest sign of deepening economic distress from international sanctions as Tehran seeks urgent relief in talks with world powers, The Wall Street Journal reported. The chief executive officer of state-owned National Iranian Gas Company, Hamid Reza Araghi, said over the weekend that the company has declared bankruptcy, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency. The report said the company had a debt of 100 trillion rials, or about $4 billion. The company tried to backtrack on the comments Monday.

Finding a new partner to develop the $1-billion Capital City Centre, selling off a handful of properties and drastically cutting back operations are all part of a plan to pull the League group of companies out of creditor protection as a going concern, the Times Colonist reported. That was the game plan expected to be unveiled in court in Vancouver today as the League group petitioned to extend the protection it has been granted under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and extend the debtor-in-possession financing it requires to run day-to-day operations.

The special liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation yesterday offered the final tranche of loans for sale to interested parties. The loans form part of Project Stone, a €9.3 billion portfolio of loans that has been put up for sale, the Irish Times reported. These are believed to include borrowings held by successful businessman Denis O’Brien, and financier Niall McFadden, along with loans connected with the Blackrock Clinic.

A fall in the number of first-home buyers in the housing market is an issue in Australia as well, which suggests rising prices are to blame, rather than the Reserve Bank's mortgage restrictions, says Finance Minister Bill English, The New Zealand Herald reported. The Reserve Bank and Government have come under fire over the loan-to-value ratio (LVR) limits on buyers with less than a 20 per cent deposit which took effect at the beginning of October, with critics saying they are hitting new home building and forcing first-home buyers out of the market.

Finding a new partner to develop the $1-billion Capital City Centre, selling off a handful of properties and drastically cutting back operations are all part of a plan to pull the League group of companies out of creditor protection as a going concern, the Times Colonist reported. That was the game plan expected to be unveiled in court in Vancouver today as the League group petitioned to extend the protection it has been granted under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and extend the debtor-in-possession financing it requires to run day-to-day operations.

Russian state-controlled bank VTB has agreed to join other creditors in restructuring mining group Mechel's $9.6 billion debt, a source close to VTB said on Saturday, Reuters reported. The coal-to-steel group, controlled by Igor Zyuzin, borrowed heavily to pay for acquisitions even after the 2008-2009 global economic slump, leaving it dangerously exposed to a global industrial downturn. VTB had been resisting a restructuring deal in which Mechel wanted a waiver of loan covenants and delays to its debt repayments, bankers familiar with the negotiations say.

The European Union confronted the euro area’s biggest economies over their spending plans for next year as austerity demands restrain the bloc’s recovery from the longest recession in its history, Bloomberg reported. The EU said that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has made “no progress” in following recommendations to spur domestic demand, that Spain’s budget risked missing deficit targets and that Italy’s 2014 plan was in danger of breaching debt-reduction rules.

Finnish miner Talvivaara, hurt by falling nickel prices and production problems, said it would seek a court-supervised overhaul after failing to raise funds and might face bankruptcy if the reorganisation failed, Reuters reported. Friday's announcement, which sent Talvivaara shares down 43 percent to a record low, was made after the group failed to raise more cash from investors including Finnish state investment fund Solidium, which decided additional investment was not viable.

European Union finance ministers struggled to advance a bank-failure plan for the euro area today, hampered by the interregnum in Berlin and persistent divisions on basic points. Ministers will be pressed to meet a year-end deadline to broker an accord after cutting short talks in Brussels today, the Irish Times reported. The bloc’s 28 nations are split on who should be the ultimate decision-maker in the planned Single Resolution Mechanism, whether it should be backed by a central fund and which banks should be covered.

Insolvent German home improvement store chain Max Bahr is to enter liquidation after talks to sell the retailer to rival Hellweg failed, its administrator said on Friday. Max Bahr's parent Praktiker is already being liquidated after the administrator failed to find a buyer for the whole group. The Max Bahr negotiations were at an advanced stage but collapsed over demands from Royal Bank of Scotland, owner of 66 of the chain's 73 buildings, the administrator said. He added that 3,600 jobs are now at risk.