Headlines

The process of selling the bankrupt railway whose runaway train killed 47 people in Quebec is under way and the company’s trustee hopes to complete a deal by year’s end, The Globe and Mail reported. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway has made no secret that the railway’s sale will be necessary to repay creditors and victims following the July 6 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Railway trustee Robert Keach said Thursday that he’s already been approached by “several” potential buyers.

China's central bank signaled it is considering speeding up the loosening of controls on investment flows in and out of China, indicating determination to press ahead with financial reform despite growing financial risks, The Wall Street Journal reported. With a stable economy, healthy banking system and an exchange rate "approaching balance," the timing is right for China to push capital-account opening, wrote Sheng Songcheng, head of the central bank's statistics department in an article in the central bank's own Financial News Thursday.

Ireland will get euro zone support to smoothly exit its bailout programme at the end of this year, the head of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem told the European Parliament Thursday, the Irish Times reported. “Ireland’s performed very well in its programme and will exit the programme, but there will be measures to support its gradual exit,” he said. “I can’t give you any details on the way that will be formed yet ... but there will be support to make sure that it is a good exit and not a temporary exit,” Mr Dijsselbloem said.

The Bank of England made no new attempt to talk down borrowing costs in financial markets on Thursday, prompting investors to pile on bets that it will raise interest rates sooner than it has suggested as growth picks up, Reuters reported. The Bank left monetary policy unchanged at its third monthly meeting under new governor Mark Carney and opted not to repeat its warning of July that investors were getting ahead of themselves by pushing up bond yields.

Insolvent German home improvement store chain Praktiker, a household name in Europe's biggest economy, will be dismantled and sold off piecemeal after its administrator failed to find a buyer for its remaining 130 outlets, Reuters reported. The stores, which have about 5,330 employees, will start a clearance sale in the coming weeks so their empty shells can be sold off individually, Praktiker's insolvency administrator Christopher Seagon said in a statement on Wednesday.

For more than two decades, Australia's economy has avoided recession, fed by a mining boom that forged one of the world's richest societies. Now, that once-in-a-generation expansion—stoked by China's demand for Australia's natural resources—could be coming to a close, The Wall Street Journal reported. As China's economic engine slows, sending prices for iron ore and coal sharply lower, Australia is facing an economic dislocation, with unemployment rising to a 12-year high and growth slowing rapidly.

Fears are rising for the health of India’s banking system as slowing economic growth and rapid currency depreciation threaten to worsen asset quality and reduce demand for bank credit from large industrial companies, the Financial Times reported. Non-performing and restructured loan levels in Asia’s third-largest economy have risen steadily over the past year to stand at about 9 per cent of assets and could reach 15.5 per cent over the next two years, according to Morgan Stanley.

The adoption of cross-border protocols by judges in Canada and the U.S. on Wednesday will allow the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway bankruptcy to move forward so that the victims of the Lac-Megantic train disaster may receive compensation as quickly as possible, the trustee assigned to oversee the case said, Bangor Daily News reported. “The U.S. case and the Canadian case are being administered primarily for the victims,” Robert Keach, a Portland lawyer who was appointed Aug. 22 to serve as trustee during the bankruptcy proceeding, said after a hearing in Bangor.

Whenever Germany thrived, so did the rest of Europe. But that long-held belief is being questioned by its neighbors, which see evidence that the country is taking off without them, the International Herald Tribune reported. Despite Berlin’s hefty financial support of the euro zone’s more beleaguered members in the last few years, the economic crisis has corroded commercial ties between Germany and the rest of Europe. Countries like Italy and Spain no longer have the purchasing power they once did, and they trade less with Germany because of it.

Bank of Ireland has attempted to defend its dealings with distressed mortgage holders saying it cannot do special deals as it has to remain profitable, the Irish Times reported. Speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, Bank of Ireland chief executive Richie Boucher said the institution was offering deals to customers that it was confident would help to keep them in their homes.