Headlines

Drydocks World, the shipbuilding and repair arm of Dubai World, has finally obtained the official go-ahead from creditors for its $2.2 billion debt-restructuring plan, the Khaleej Times reported. At a meeting in Dubai on Tuesday, creditors holding more than 97 per cent of the debt to be restructured officially agreed to the deal, a statement from professional services firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, said. PwC is advising Drydocks on the restructuring alongside law firm Clifford Chance.

Deutsche Annington Immobilien AG, Germany's leading residential property owner, on Tuesday, July 10, unveiled a preliminary agreement to restructure €4.3 billion ($5.27 billion) of debt in a deal that could lead to a public listing in 2013 or 2014, The Deal Pipeline reported. If the deal goes ahead, British buyout firm Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., which owns the German business through a dedicated fund, will start the ball rolling with an injection of €504 million, roughly half in cash. Terra Firma will deliver the other half by forgiving a shareholder loan.

Sino-Forest Corp said on Tuesday it terminated a proposed asset sale, in favor of a plan that will result in the company's creditors acquiring all of its forestry assets, Reuters reported. The Chinese forestry company's shares plummeted in June 2011 after a short-seller accused it of exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. The company's stock has since been de-listed by the Toronto Stock Exchange and one of Canada's main securities regulators - the Ontario Securities Commission, recently charged the company and some of its former executives with fraud.

Euro area finance ministers agreed early Tuesday on the terms of a bailout for Spain's troubled banks, saying that €30 billion ($36.88 billion) can be ready by end of this month, the International Herald Tribune reported on an Associated Press story. The finance ministers for the 17 countries that use the euro as their official currency will return to Brussels on July 20 to finalize the agreement, having first obtained the approval of their governments or parliaments, eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker said early Tuesday morning.

Royal Bank of Scotland and two other banks have abandoned talks on restructuring Dubai Group’s $10bn debt and threatened to bring unprecedented legal action against the investment vehicle of Dubai’s ruler, sources close to the matter said, Gulf Times reported on a Reuters story. The walkout by RBS, German lender Commerzbank and South Africa’s Standard Bank at the beginning of June could prevent a deal for the entire restructuring just as an initial agreement is about to be circulated to other banks, five sources said.

Tighter credit conditions and a weak economy weighed on the U.K. housing market in June as house prices fell and activity slowed, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, a survey from the British Retail Consortium U.K. retail sales for the first half of 2012 were subdued as the wettest June on record curbed spending, despite shoppers having an extra day off to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilee. House prices retreated further in June amid a weak economy and the euro-zone debt crisis.

The number of wealthy French people planning a move to London has climbed following François Hollande’s victory in the country’s presidential elections, according to London-based property agents, lawyers and wealth managers, the Financial Times reported. Knight Frank, the property agent, said sales of prime property to French buyers had risen 40 per cent in the three months to the end of June 2012 compared with the same period in 2011. Average prices paid by these buyers had risen from £1.1m to £3.9m.

Germany's regionally-owned lender Bayerische Landesbank, or BayernLB, has reached a long-awaited agreement with the European Commission on the bank's restructuring, the European Union's antitrust chief said Monday, Dow Jones reported. A formal decision on BayernLB's fate is due July 25, E.U. Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said following a meeting with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Horst Seehofer, premier of the state of Bavaria. Almunia added the final deal will reduce the size of the bank, but will give it strength.

Brazilian debt-laden power distributor Celpa and creditors halted dent restructuring talks in order to allow the company to negotiate a sale to rival Equatorial Energia, an official told Reuters on Monday. Mauro Santos, the official in charge of overseeing Celpa's bankruptcy protection filing, said in an interview that talks will remain suspended until August 9. Equatorial said recently that it entered exclusive talks with Celpa over a potential sale. Read more.

Eurozone finance ministers will meet Monday to build on measures agreed last month to tame the debt crisis, seeking to provide fresh momentum as the economy slows and markets turn sceptical, Agence France-Presse reported. A June 28-29 EU summit was hailed as a breakthrough, promising fresh capital for Spain's struggling banks, a European bank union to keep the lenders in line and making it easier for the bloc's new bailout fund to help states in trouble.