Headlines

Spain's La Seda de Barcelona, LSB, which makes plastic bottles in Europe, Turkey and North Africa, said on Monday it would begin insolvency proceedings after failing to reach a deal with creditors, Reuters reported. A record 2,500 Spanish companies squeezed by a deep recession filed for insolvency in the first three months of this year, hurting lenders as they take ever bigger provisions against losses on loans, eating into profits.

The Italian government has approved a new package of urgent measures aimed at restarting the country's economy, including a €3 billion ($4 billion) investment in infrastructure works and increased funding for small and midsize companies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government decree, unveiled late Saturday after a six-hour cabinet meeting, is part of Prime Minister Enrico Letta's challenge to revive Italy's flagging economy which is now in its eighth consecutive quarter of contraction and facing record youth unemployment rates. Mr.

New Zealand broadcaster MediaWorks Ltd was placed in receivership on Monday after its private equity owners and bankers failed to agree on a refinancing deal, but new owners have been lined up, Reuters reported. Investors led by Australian businessman Rod McGeoch, a director of gaming company SkyCity Entertainment Group Ltd and chairman of Vantage Private Equity Ltd, are set to take over the company which operates New Zealand's TV3 and Channel 4 television networks, and a string of radio stations.

A record seven million students will graduate from universities and colleges across China in the coming weeks, but their job prospects appear bleak — the latest sign of a troubled Chinese economy, the International Herald Tribune reported. Businesses say they are swamped with job applications but have few positions to offer as economic growth has begun to falter. Twitter-like microblogging sites in China are full of laments from graduates with dim prospects.

Europe's auto makers just keep sinking deeper and deeper into trouble, The Wall Street Journal reported. Passenger-car sales, stunted by the region's stubborn economic woes, have fallen five years in a row, and are on their way to a sixth consecutive decline this year. Many manufacturers are losing money, but governments and labor unions have fought off restructuring efforts. The result: the number of unprofitable auto plants is surging.

The Association of Financial Markets in Europe polled 75 companies, banks and investors for its report 'Unlocking funding for European investment and growth', which was published Friday, Financial News reported. A majority of respondents said regulation was a barrier for both issuers and investors, with 64% of investors, 88% of banks and 56% of corporates making that point. Of particular concern was the disparity of insolvency practice in Europe, which is keeping issuers from some countries out of the high-yield bond market.

The Montenegrin government filed a court motion on Friday to consider bankruptcy for the country's single biggest industrial employer, indebted aluminium plant KAP, which faces having its electricity cut off over unpaid bills, Reuters reported. Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica employs 1,200 people and accounted for 4.7 percent of the tiny Adriatic republic's economic output last year.

Senior euro-zone finance-ministry officials will polish by the end of this week crucial details of a plan to allow the bloc's bailout fund to directly support ailing banks, with the amount of funds dedicated to the task likely to be capped at €60 billion ($80 billion).

Ten years after its spectacular collapse in an accounting scandal, reborn Italian dairy firm Parmalat is still struggling to free itself from legal disputes that are clouding both its prospects and those of its new French owner, Reuters reported. In March, a local court put Parmalat under the oversight of a special commissioner as part of an investigation into its purchase of a business from its majority owner Lactalis - a deal which helped Lactalis to cut its debt, but which some minority investors say was overpriced and makes little strategic sense.

Edno Santana de Vasconcelos, a resident of Brasília, was delighted when he secured a new dwelling earlier this year under the government’s “my home, my life” housing programme for lower income earners. But if he thought the scheme, with its subsidised mortgage, was generous he was more impressed this week to learn of the government’s “my better home” plan, the Financial Times reported. This is a line of cheap credit entitling people in the housing scheme to buy up to R$5000 ($2,334)-worth of washing machines, fridges or televisions for their new digs.