Headlines

The liquidation vehicle for Ireland's failed Anglo Irish Bank has been granted bankruptcy protection in the United States, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The bank, whose failure cost Irish taxpayers some 30 billion euros ($41 billion) in the financial crisis, was put into an accelerated liquidation process during an emergency session of Ireland's parliament in February. Now known as Irish Bank Resolution Corp, or IRBC, the liquidating bank applied in August for U.S. court protection to prevent creditors from going after more than $1 billion in U.S. assets.

A Venezuelan lender that bid more than €1 billion beat out three big Spanish rivals and three U.S.-based investment firms in an auction to buy a nationalized Spanish bank, the country's bank-bailout fund announced Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Banesco Grupo Financiero Internacional and its Spanish unit Banco Etcheverría SA offered to pay €1.003 billion ($1.38 billion) to buy NCG Banco SA, the largest bank in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia.

Around 60 staff have lost their jobs at the Australian Ksubi fashion label, which has been placed under receivership, The Australian reported. The trendy street brand was founded by George Garrow and Dan Single in 1999 and worn by the likes of supermodel Miranda Kerr and celebrity Nicole Richie. On Tuesday, it was placed under the receivership of advisory firm Jirsch Sutherland. In a statement, Jirsch Sutherland said it was assessing the label's financial position, including "necessary rationalisation of overheads including staff at head office".

If events go smoothly for Ukraine’s cash-strapped government, Russia will begin bailing out the country as early as this week with a first purchase of $3bn in Ukrainian bonds, the Financial Times reported. Relief on the energy front is also imminent because Moscow will cut Kiev’s natural gas bill by one-third from the start of the new year. Those are the chief benefits promised this week by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in a deal that will keep Ukraine firmly rooted in Moscow’s orbit and that appears to mark another foreign policy triumph for the Kremlin over the west.

Italy's finance minister has threatened to hold up a deal on a new system for winding down failing euro-zone banks unless Germany and other rich countries agree to simplify decision-making and commit more financing. "I am convinced that we should not hurry for a defective Banking Union, but rather take the time which may be needed to build a properly function[ing] one," Fabrizio Saccomanni wrote in a letter to some of his counterparts dated Dec. 13 and seen by The Wall Street Journal. Mr.

The U.K.'s official statistics agency said Tuesday it plans to change the way it calculates data on the public finances, a move that will revalue the British government's debt upward by more than a hundred billion pounds, The Wall Street Journal reported. The overhaul will reverse an accounting maneuver by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne last year that lowered the government's borrowing figures in the short term. But the new debt calculations would apply retroactively and thus would be unlikely to require a policy response. Mr.

Talvivaara won court approval to restructure the entire company's debt, allowing the nickel miner to continue production and helping it fend off bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Talvivaara, hurt by falling nickel prices and chronic production problems, was waiting for court approval to include the debt of a subsidiary, Talvivaara Sotkamo, in its reorganisation plans.

Ukrainian anti-government protesters demanded to know what President Viktor Yanukovych had ceded to seal $15 billion of Russian financial aid and a one-third discount on energy imports, Bloomberg reported. Russia will buy Ukrainian state debt this year and next and will cut the price it charges for natural gas to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters, President Vladimir Putin said after meeting Yanukovych in Moscow yesterday. The two leaders said they didn’t discuss a Russia-led customs union after speculation Ukraine was close to joining riled pro-European demonstrators in Kiev.

The company operating as Sears Home Services has gone into receivership, leaving 643 people jobless and putting into limbo $3-million in customer deposits for home installed goods and services ranging from carpeting to roofing, The Toronto Star reported. SHS Services Management Inc. has been providing home installed products and services under the Sears Home Services banner since February. It went into receivership on Friday, citing liabilities of $17-million.

Iconic Victorian discount retailer Dimmeys is close to administration, as yesterday it copped a $3 million penalty for breaching product safety laws. Dimmeys and distribution company Starite Distributors were penalised $3 million and $600,000 respectively for breaching product safety laws on girls’ padded swimwear, baby bath toys, cosmetic sets and basketball rings. The Federal Court also ruled the director of both companies, Douglas Zappelli, be fined $120,000 and banned from managing corporations for six years.