Headlines

Homburg Invest Inc. shareholders may not get a dime following the restructuring of the troubled Halifax-based real estate company, according to new documents, The Chronicle Herald reported. Last October, the debt-plagued company went to court to obtain protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, while Deloitte, the court-appointed monitor, restructured its affairs. The company’s management discussion and analysis sheds some light on what a restructuring means to Homburg and its investors.

Germany’s banks are deeply divided over plans to give new cross-border supervisory authority to the European Central Bank, with the country’s flagship bank pressing for oversight to be extended as widely as possible against opposition from hundreds of smaller institutions, the Financial Times reported. Deutsche Bank’s stance also clashes with that of Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, who has argued for ECB oversight to be limited to Deutsche and other big banks that could pose a systemic risk to Europe’s financial system.

The European Central Bank's latest interest-rate cut isn't helping the economy as much as it should because of differences in businesses' borrowing costs across the euro zone, a top ECB official said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The comments, by executive board member Jörg Asmussen, highlight the challenge the ECB faces as its weighs its next steps to support the euro-zone economy amid the debt crisis in Southern Europe.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's eight months in power have been tumultuous from the start but September and October may be even tougher, with the Spanish leader assailed on all sides, Reuters reported. Internationally he is caught between diverging pressures from Germany and France, and at home he faces protests over spending cuts sought by the euro zone's big powers. France wants Rajoy to request an international bailout to prop up Spanish finances and stop the debt crisis deepening.

China Medical Technologies Inc., a maker of diagnostic products, filed for Chapter 15 foreign-firm bankruptcy protection in New York, listing as much as $500 million in assets and debts, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. China Medical, which makes products to monitor various diseases including cancer, also listed foreign bankruptcy proceedings pending in the Cayman Islands, according to a petition posted in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Chapter 15 helps shield overseas companies from U.S. lawsuits and creditor claims while a company continues the process abroad.

Stricken Polish builder PBG is seeking a 200 million zlotys ($60 million) loan from state-controlled industry development agency ARP, its chief executive was quoted as saying on Tuesday, as the company battles to stay in business, Reuters reported. "We will amend our motion to ARP by the end of this week," state agency PAP quoted Wieslaw Rozacki as saying.

Yellow Media Inc.’s decision to sweeten its proposed debt restructuring by offering more to holders of convertible debentures has done little to pacify the incensed group, putting the media company in a bind just days before its plan goes to a vote, The Globe and Mail reported. On Tuesday, the media company struck a much more conciliatory tone that its language in recent weeks and offered convert holders, who own bonds that can convert to common shares, better terms as part of the restructuring.

Investors in about 5 billion euros ($6.3 billion) of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA’s junior debt face a more than even-money chance of suffering losses as bad loans pile up at the world’s oldest bank, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The cost of insuring 10 million euros of the lender’s subordinated debt is 2.75 million euros in advance and 500,000 euros a year, signaling an almost 60 percent probability of default, according to data provider CMA. That’s up from 1.7 million euros upfront on Jan.

The French government has agreed to rescue Crédit Immobilier de France (CIF), after conceding defeat in attempts to find a buyer for the struggling mortgage provider, the Irish Times reported. CIF, which lends mainly to poor households, has been badly hit by a reduced flow of funding from credit markets and tighter rules on capital requirements for banks. It had been up for sale for a number of months but its fate appeared to be sealed last week when Moody’s cut its credit rating, saying it was in effect locked out of capital markets.

Shareholders in Kuwait's Global Investment House approved on Sunday a final plan to create new special purpose vehicles that will carry the company's debt as part of the $1.7 billion debt restructuring plan, Reuters reported. Global, which is undergoing its second debt restructuring in three years, will create at least two SPVs, one to hold company assets along with a debt of $1.3 billion and one which will take part in a capital increase for the parent company and which will carry a debt equivalent of $430 million, Managing Director Maha al-Ghunaim told a news conference.