Headlines

The owners of German cable company Primacom have been forced to inject another 20 million euros ($26 million) into the business and restructure its 300 million euros of debt for the second time in a year, Reuters reported. Primacom was taken over in January 2011 by bank lenders including ING Groep and fund managers such as Alcentra Group, Tennenbaum Capital and Avenue Capital following the insolvency of its parent, Primacom AG, in June 2010. This debt for equity swap was achieved through a court procedure at the High Court in London.

The collapse of Hungary’s national airline, Malev, will likely make such a big hole in the country’s budget it has attracted the inquiring eye of the International Monetary Fund, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. State-owned Malev terminated its operations last week under the weight of crippling debt. Although it hasn’t formally gone bankrupt, it has already announced that it will dismiss its staff, and has returned the leased aircraft in its fleet.

The French government and two state-controlled entities have reached an agreement over how to restructure the French municipal lending operations of troubled bank Dexia SA , people familiar with the matter said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under the proposed agreement, the French government and state financial house Caisse des Depots & Consignations will each pick up a 31.67% stake in Dexia Municipal Agency or Dexma, Dexia's municipal-lending unit.

National Irish Bank has reported increased losses for the year to the end of December, as it continues to set aside money to cope with potential loan losses, RTÉ News reported. NIB, which is owned by Danske Bank, said its pre-tax losses for 2011 came to €805m as it set aside €850m for loan impairment charges. The bank had reported pre-tax losses of €618m in 2010, when it had set aside €667m for bad debts. The bank said that its income fell by 13% to €141m due to reduced customer demand and the impact of impaired loans.

Swiss trading house Vitol and two other companies are interested in leasing the UK's Coryton refinery from administrators, sources familiar with the discussions said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Administrators PwC have has been looking to find a buyer for Coryton since Petroplus, Europe's largest independent refiner by capacity, went into administration at the end of December. Vitol and PwC declined to comment.

Prescient or foolhardy? Investors who took a punt on Italian government bonds late last year are already sitting on handsome profits, leaving those who missed out asking whether Italy under Mario Monti’s technocratic government has truly turned a corner. Analysts are warning, however, that the strong market rally – primarily driven by cheap financing provided by the European Central Bank – flies in the face of expectations that Italy, the most critical element for the survival of the euro, will suffer the deepest recession among advanced economies this year.

The Bank of England looks set to inject more cash into the economy to shore up a stuttering recovery, despite signs that the country may have avoided slipping back into recession, Reuters reported. The central bank is expected to announce 50 billion pounds in additional quantitative easing asset purchases later on Thursday, though the decision of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee may not be unanimous given recent more upbeat economic news.

Taxes go uncollected, deficit targets are routinely missed, job cuts from the state payroll are postponed, privatisations have barely begun and pharmacies still shut in the middle of the day, Reuters reported. Nearly two years into Greece's bailout, so many promises have been broken that international lenders have largely lost faith in the country's will to reform itself and are torn between imposing stricter outside control and cutting Athens loose.

The liquidation of Hungary's national airline Malev would cost the state HUF1 trillion ($4.6 billion) under the provision of a contract, government commissioner Gyula Budai said Wednesday, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported. The sum is payable under a provision of a contract signed back in 2007 between the Hungarian government and the owner of the Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport, Germany's Hochtief AG, Budai said.

A quarter of all Irish mortgage debt is susceptible to being written down under proposals in the Government’s personal insolvency legislation, the ratings agency Moody’s has estimated. This would amount to about €35 billion of Irish mortgage debt, including buy-to-let mortgages, based on the statistics from the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. Moody’s said the proposals announced last month, which include measures to write off mortgage debt in out-of-court settlements, was “credit negative” for bonds backed by residential mortgages sold by Irish institutions.