Headlines

The insolvency profession has welcomed the long-debated ruling in Nortel and Lehman Brothers v The Pensions Regulator , after a four-year battle over pension fund debts after a company has entered administration, Economia reported. The case stems from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Canadian telecoms group Nortel Networks four years ago, which left behind major UK pension funds deficits. The European administrators of Nortel brought the issue to the Supreme Court - along with the administrators of Lehman Brothers – following a $3.1bn claim from the UK pension scheme on insolvency.

A $91 billion industrial project here, mired in debt and unfulfilled promise, suggests part of the reason why China's economy is wobbling – and why it will be hard to turn around, The Wall Street Journal reported. The steel mill at the heart of Caofeidian, which is outside the city of Tangshan, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Beijing, is losing money. Nearby, an office park planned to be finished in 2010 is a mass of steel frames and unfinished buildings. Work on a residential complex was halted last Christmas, after workers completed the concrete frames.

Maxcom filed for pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a U.S. court, legal filings showed, as the Mexican telecoms firm pursues a recapitalization plan that would give full control to a investor group led by private equity firm Ventura Capital, Reuters reported. Small phone companies in Mexico have struggled to compete with billionaire businessman Carlos Slim's America Movil, which has about 70 percent of Mexican mobile connections and about 80 percent of the country's fixed lines.

Kuwait's Global Investment House said on Wednesday that it had completed a $1.7 billion restructuring plan, the second at the firm since the global financial crisis, Reuters reported. Under the plan, Global separated its core fee business from other parts of the company which were spun off into special purpose vehicles (SPV). Global was one of several Kuwaiti investment firms hit hard by the crisis. It used short-term debt to invest heavily in local real estate and stocks whose values later slumped. Global created two SPVs under the plan.

Loewe, the last major manufacturer of high-end television sets in Germany, is fighting for survival in a sector increasingly dominated in recent years by Asian rivals, The Sun Daily reported. Ironically, it is also hoping that its saviour would hail from Asia, the very region which is at the root of many of its current woes. Asked by the weekly magazine Der Spiegel whether Loewe will still exist in 12 months' time, the group's chairman Matthias Harsch replied: "That's the question I ask myself every morning.

China’s economy may be facing a period of instability and imbalance as it transitions from high-speed growth, a state researcher said, Bloomberg reported. “Growth inertia should not be underestimated, as new growth engines and patterns have not been formed,” researcher Yu Bin said in a report by China’s Development Research Center released yesterday in London. “Market expectations are unstable, downward pressure has increased, and existing and new structural mismatches exist.

The Cypriot government wants the restructuring of the bailed-out country's biggest bank to be completed by the end of this month, its spokesman said Tuesday, The New Zealand Herald reported on an AP story. Christos Stylianides said that once the restructuring is completed, management of the bank will return to its directors and shareholders.

Spanish banks may have to swallow more losses to shake off the legacy of a property crash, real estate experts warn, as they struggle to sell plots of land that have ended up on their books and which are now worth less than many have accounted for, Reuters reported. Lenders were forced by the government to take billions of euros in provisions against losses last year after property values collapsed in 2008, with the steepest writedowns destined to cover land they were saddled with as developers went bust.

Europe’s biggest banks, which more than doubled their highest-quality capital to $1 trillion since 2007 to meet tougher rules, may have further to go as regulators scrutinize how lenders judge the riskiness of their assets, Bloomberg reported. Deutsche Bank AG, Barclays Plc and Societe Generale SA are among European banks that issued stock, sold units or hoarded earnings to bring capital, as a proportion of assets weighted by risk, into line with new global rules.

Chinese state-controlled firm AVIC is to buy the commercial business of German aircraft engine maker Thielert, banking on a surge in demand for diesel plane engines in China and other emerging markets, Reuters reported. AVIC and Thielert, which filed for insolvency more than five years ago, did not provide financial details of the deal announced on Tuesday.