Headlines

Lawyers for Ulster Bank have applied to a US court seeking to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings of property developer Sean Dunne so the bank can proceed with its own bankruptcy proceedings against him in Ireland, the Irish Times reported. Ulster Bank said that Mr Dunne’s filing for bankruptcy in the US was the “culmination of extraordinary efforts” by him to “avoid the application of Irish law to an Irish national with respect to Irish debts and Irish assets”.

Ireland’s EU-IMF bailout has been broadly successful, according to a new reports by a leading European thinktank, but risks remain that a second bailout will be required down the line, the Irish Times reported. In an analysis of the manner in which three euro area countries have been bailed out, the report concludes that Ireland’s bailout has been a success, Portugal’s a “potential” success and Greece’s a failure.

A deepening recession and banking stress tests could find Italy's mid-sized lenders short of billions of euros, putting the state on the hook for a new wave of cash calls and triggering an overhaul of how they do business, Reuters reported in an insight. Even ahead of the European stress tests, expected to take place when or shortly before the European Central Bank (ECB) takes over direct supervision of euro zone banks next year, Italy's smaller banks are under pressure to boost their balance sheets after a Bank of Italy audit of problematic loans and to meet stricter Basel 3 capital rules.

Corporate collapses and debt restructurings have been common in the Persian Gulf since the financial crisis. But the U.S. bankruptcy filing by the Bahrain-based investment firm Arcapita has presented an unusual sight for the region – a debt-laden company which is planning to sell all its assets to repay creditors and wind up its operations, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported.

Micron Technology Inc. moved a step closer to its takeover of bankrupt Japanese memory chip producer Elpida Memory Inc. this week, The Idaho Statesman reported. The Tokyo High Court tossed out an appeal by creditors to a Tokyo District Court's approval of the company's reorganization plan which calls for Micron to take over the Japanese company. Micron’s acquisition of Elpida will give the memory chip company a larger share of the market for dynamic random access memory used in PC’s and mobile devices.

Thomas Cook Group, the debt-laden travel operator, launched a £1.6bn capital restructuring on Thursday as part of its bid to return to normal trading after flirting with collapse in late 2011, the Financial Times reported. The lossmaking travel group, which is midway through a restructuring programme, said it would raise £425m through a rights issue and share placement. It also plans to sell £441m of bonds, and has renegotiated a £691m debt facility.

Ukio Banko Investicine Grupe, or UBIG, the Lithuanian investment company that controls Scottish soccer club Heart of Midlothian, is insolvent, said the Baltic nation’s Department of Enterprise Bankruptcy Management today on its website, Bloomberg reported. The department, part of the Economy Ministry, said that Kaunas-based UBIG, at its own request, had been placed on a list of companies unable or unwilling to meet their obligations. UBIG is a sister company of Ukio Bankas AB, a lender that Lithuania’s central bank closed in February for risky lending to related parties.

The euro-zone debt crisis has mutated into Europe's longest slump of the postwar era, with no recovery in sight for a broad swath of the continent, The Wall Street Journal reported. Continuing government austerity, banks that can't or won't lend and heavy household debts are weighing on many countries. Weak business surveys are challenging official predictions, including from the European Central Bank, that growth will return this year.

Arcapita Bank BSC, an Islamic-compliant fund manager, won court permission to borrow $350 million from Goldman Sachs International (GS) to finance its exit from bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in Manhattan approved the financing today after Goldman Sachs and Fortress Credit Corp. revised their loan offers in an auction held in a conference room outside of Lane’s court. Goldman Sachs made the best proposal, Michael Rosenthal, a lawyer for Arcapita, told Lane.

Having trouble borrowing from the banks? Or trusts? Or pawn shops, underground lenders, wealth management products, corporate finance companies, or small-loan companies? Don’t worry. China’s securities companies are also in the loan game, The Wall Street Journal China Real Time blog reported. It would seem that there is no shortage of avenues through which to tap credit these days in China. If anything, mounting debt levels, fueled by the shadowing banking sector, is raising concerns that credit is being dispensed too freely. Into this step China’s brokerages.