Headlines

Greek Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos has resigned for health reasons, the prime minister's office said Monday, forcing the government to scramble to find a replacement to lead efforts to renegotiate better terms for Greece's European-led bailout, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Rapanos, 64 years old, has been hospitalized since Friday suffering from severe abdominal pains, and decided not to head the finance ministry as part of the coalition government that emerged from elections held earlier this month.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said Ireland will not adopt a new European tax on financial transactions. Under Denmark’s presidency of the EU, talks were set in train to introduce such a tax in a limited number of countries, the Irish Times reported. Although the Minister left the door open to participate in a slimmed-down tax scheme, he made it clear to his EU counterparts that Ireland would not adopt a full-blown transaction tax along the lines proposed by the European Commission.

Moody's Investors Service lowered its long-term ratings on 28 Spanish banks by one to four notches, pointing to the reduced credit-worthiness of Spain and expectations that the banks' exposure to commercial real estate will likely cause higher losses, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spanish bank stocks tumbled Monday on speculation about the downgrades.

Tokyo Electric Power Co will receive fresh funding at interest rates below 1 percent from its top 10 lenders, Japanese business daily the Nikkei reported. The additional funding will total 1.07 trillion yen ($13.44 billion) - 500 billion yen of new loans, a 400 billion yen credit line and 170 billion yen in loan rollovers, the daily reported. The lenders to Japan's biggest utility, known as Tepco, include three of the largest banks in the country, three trust banks and four life insurers.

Spain on Monday will formally ask its eurozone partners for up to €100bn to recapitalise its banks, opening a week of diplomatic activity that will culminate in a European Union summit on Thursday night to address the region’s damaging sovereign debt crisis. Luis de Guindos, Spanish economy minister, and his colleagues in the 17-nation eurozone say details of the loan for Spain and the conditions attached should be agreed in a memorandum of understanding to be discussed by eurogroup ministers on July 9.

Two statements last week following the four-way summit in Rome between the German, French, Italian and Spanish leaders capture the essence of the euro crisis and show why a solution is as far away as ever, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Central banks in developed nations are confronting the limits of their ability to aid economic recovery as government efforts to strengthen their finances fall short, the Bank for International Settlements said, Bloomberg reported. “Central banks are being cornered into prolonging monetary stimulus as governments drag their feet and adjustment is delayed,” the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS said in its annual report, published Sunday.

The figurehead of the UK's insolvency industry has warned that a new batch of retailers could be forced into administration as the high street attempts to trade through one of the most financially stressful weeks of the year, The Guardian reported. The forecast by Lee Manning, the president of the insolvency industry's trade body, R3, comes as shopkeepers attempt to pay their landlords three months' advance rent on their stores, a bill that became due on Sunday in a deadline known as "rent quarter day".

The Romanian government stunned the Bucharest market last week as privatisation target Hidroelectrica was declared insolvent, in a move that puts the rest of the privatisation programme into doubt, International Financing Review reported. The energy company had been scheduled to list in Bucharest later this year to raise up to €450m, but the company applied for insolvency last Tuesday in what people involved described as a bid to tear up existing contracts and restructure its tariff regime. Remus Vulpescu, the chairman of the board, is a former barrister and expert in insolvency law.

Debt-burdened French poultry group Doux, which collapsed into administration earlier this month, is seeking a buyer to take over the entire business and ensure its survival, one of its administrators said on Friday, Reuters reported. Regis Vaillot said in a statement that the administrators wanted to avoid a breakup of the company and would also remain open to a possible refinancing of the group, which is 80 percent owned by its founder, Charles Doux.