Headlines

South Korea's Hanwha Corp intends to buy solar Group Q-Cells, the insolvent German group said in a statement on Sunday, Reuters reported. Hanwha and Q-Cells' insolvency administrator Henning Schorisch had signed a contract, which needs to be approved by a creditors' meeting to be held on Aug. 29. Q-Cells, once the world's largest maker of solar cells, said Hanwha would take on liabilities, which amount to "the low hundreds of millions." In addition it would pay a "medium double-digit million-euro range" in cash," Q-cells said in the statement.

Distressed Kuwaiti investment firms might increasingly resort to debt-for-equity swaps and principal reductions to cut their debt load as they continue to struggle with high levels of leverage and depressed real estate and stock valuations, Reuters reported on an International Financing Review story. Hit hard by the financial crisis of 2008, most of Kuwait's investment firms have traditionally resorted to maturity extensions to avoid default.

Spain is negotiating with euro zone partners over conditions for aid to bring down its borrowing costs, though the country has not made a final decision to request a bailout, three euro zone sources said on Thursday. The favored option being discussed is that the existing European rescue fund, the EFSF, would purchase Spanish debt at primary auctions while the European Central Bank would intervene in the secondary market to lower yields. No specific figure for aid has been discussed in the talks, which started several weeks ago, one of the sources told Reuters.

Of all the many striking policy measures taken since the financial crisis, one of the most extraordinary has gone almost unremarked – the introduction of negative official interest rates by Denmark, the Financial Times reported. In an attempt to maintain its strict currency peg to the euro, the Danish central bank lowered its main deposit rate for banks – the certificate of deposit or CD rate – to -0.2 per cent last month. The Nationalbanken felt it had little choice.

Just over one in five home loans was in some form of financial difficulty at the end of June, according to new figures on mortgage arrears from the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. The figures include for the first time mortgages where borrowers have missed repayments for fewer than 90 days in addition to regularly reported figures on mortgage arrears of 90 days or more.

Barclays is set to assume control of debt-burdened French poultry group Doux next month, a union said on Thursday, enabling the UK bank to pursue a turnaround plan for the business supported by the family that controls the company, Reuters reported. Barclays is expected to take an 80 percent stake in Doux, which went into court administration in early June, in exchange for forgiving debt of 140 million euros ($175 million). The plan received implicit backing from a French court on Aug. 1. "The transformation of Doux's Barclays debt into 80 percent of its capital should be implemented on Sept.

Fal Oil Company’s attempts to restructure debts of around AED 4bn (USD 1.1bn) and raise USD 650m in new working capital have been dealt a blow by the loss of oil acting as security for Standard Chartered Bank, according to a source familiar with the situation and three creditors, the Financial Times reported. The development prompted Standard Chartered, the chair of Fal’s creditor steering committee, to tell the committee it is rejecting the company’s request for new working capital, the source and one creditor said.

Australian Music Group Holdings (AMG), which trades as Billy Hyde and Allans, has been placed into receivership by one of its creditors. James Stewart and Brendan Richards from Ferrier Hodgson were appointed as administrators Thursday morning by Revere Capital, a group of private investors owed around $27 million by AMG, and immediately placed the retailer into receivership. Unsecured creditors are owed around $13.5 million, while employee entitlements are estimated at $3 million.

Bild, Germany’s most-read newspaper, has accused Greece of “making our euro kaput” and only a few days ago referred to the country as “a bottomless pit,” the International Herald Tribune reported. On Wednesday, though, the paper featured a friendly chat with the man in charge of that bottomless pit: Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, who pleaded during an interview for more time to repair his country’s shattered economy. The Bild reporter even inquired how Mr. Samaras was feeling after an eye operation.

The Irish Banking Federation has rejected the findings of a Central Bank report that claims Ireland is second only to Greece in terms of refusing loans to small businesses, the Irish Times reported. The Central Bank report published this morning found that Irish banks reject more business loan applications than any other state in the euro zone except Greece, with small and medium businesses in Ireland twice as likely to have a loan application turned down as the average across the region.