Headlines

Debenture holders in Irongate Property may have to write off as much as a third of their investment, according to the failed property investor's receivers, Business Day reported. The receivers expect to repay between 67 cents and 83 cents in the dollar to 1,500 debenture holders owed $46.1 million, according to the first report by Barry Jordan and David Vance of Deloitte. The firm's assets were valued at about $78 million, leaving a shortfall of almost $20 million from the $97.9 million of total debt on Irongate's books.

In a marathon six-hour session, more than 9,000 shareholders of embattled Tokyo Electric Power grilled management over alleged failures in handling the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northern Japan, but refused to back a proposal demanding an end to the utility's use of nuclear power, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde on Tuesday clinched the top job at the IMF, keeping the international lender in the hands of a European at a time of growing concern over a possible Greek debt default, Reuters reported. Lagarde will become the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund when her five-year term as managing director begins on July 5. She will find herself immediately immersed in efforts by the IMF and European Union to head off a Greek default that could touch off an international crisis.

It is too early to say what will finally emerge as a deal between European financial groups and governments. But there is a growing consensus that the proposal circulated by the French banking sector on Monday was a credible blueprint, the Financial Times reported. “The French proposals have catalysed the debate,” said Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, which represents most global banks and helped organise the Rome talks.

Swedish Automobile NV Tuesday announced a partial sale and lease-back agreement on Saab Automobile's real-estate assets as the car maker continues its search for cash to pay workers and suppliers to enable it to restart production, The Wall Street Journal reported. A consortium of Swedish real estate investors, led by Hemfosa Fastigheter AB, will purchase 50.1% of the shares in Saab property for 255 million Swedish kronor ($39.6 million). Saab Automobile will enter into a lease agreement with Saab property for a duration of 15 years.

Debt-strapped Greece is about to hold an epic yard sale, The Wall Street Journal reported. For the taking: four wide-body Airbus jets, a state lottery, a state horse-racing concession and sports book, stakes in a casino, several ports, a national post office, two water companies, a nickel miner and smelter, a munitions maker, electricity and gas monopolies, a telecommunications operator, shares in a half dozen banks, hundreds of miles of roads, a defunct airport, old Olympic venues and thousands of acres of land, including magnificent stretches of Greece's famed coast.

Years ago, when Industrial & Commercial Bank of China was getting ready to list, it went through its own spring cleaning of its balance sheet, The Globe and Mail reported on a Financial Times story. It established Huarong Asset Management, a platform to take all its bad debts, while the Ministry of Finance recapitalized the bank itself. Today, Huarong has re-invented itself as a nonbank financial institution.

Swedish Automobile NV on Monday secured another short-term lifeline when an unidentified Chinese company bought 582 Saab cars for €13 million ($18.4 million) in cash, money the company wants to use to pay employee wages and some of the unpaid bills it owes its suppliers, The Wall Street Journal reported. However, the news immediately drew skepticism from supplier organization FKG, which said it wouldn't be enough to cover both the wage bill and supplier payments and wouldn't allow Saab to restart car production. The financial situation has been growing steadily worse at Saab.

Struggling British women's fashion retailer Jane Norman has become the latest victim of a downturn in shopper spending on discretionary items, collapsing into administration, Reuters reported. A spokeswoman for business advisory firm Zolfo Cooper said on Monday it had been appointed administrator of the firm, which trades from over 200 stores and concessions in the UK and Ireland, employing over 1,600. Press reports have said British department store group Debenhams may be interested in buying the Jane Norman brand and residual stock.

A debt restructuring isn't an alternative option for Greece as the consequences of such an event on Europe's financial markets could dwarf the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, a key member of the European Central Bank's executive board said Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "A restructuring—that is often discussed in the case of Greece—constitutes absolutely no alternative" to adjustment and reform, warned Jürgen Stark, a hawkish German member of the ECB's board, according to the text of a speech given in Berlin.