Headlines

Don Ha Real Estate, a Ray White Group franchise, has been placed in receivership. Don Ha is a former NBR Rich Lister and horse trader, The National Business Review reported. The extent of the company's financial woes will be revealed on May 20 in the first receiver's report. Ray White chief executive Carey Smith said receivers Grant Thornton had requested, and would receive, Ray White’s support in the receivership process.

European Union finance ministers will attempt again Monday to map out the details for a planned bailout fund to replace an existing temporary facility, amid ongoing discord on just how the fund should be financed, the Real Time Brussels blog reported. High-level officials continued to struggle to find agreement this week in preparatory meetings, according to someone close to the talks.

The world’s most powerful central banks joined forces to sell billions of dollars worth of yen, battling speculators – described as “sneaky thieves” by one Japanese official – who have driven the currency to record highs, the Irish Times reported. The intervention by banks including the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England began early yesterday, after ministers from the Group of Seven most industrialised nations approved the first such co-ordinated action in more than a decade.

Argentina's flagship airline, Aerolineas Argentinas, has asked the courts to lift a 10-year-old legal measure shielding it from creditors after the company managed to restructure its debts, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a statement, the airline said it has paid 99.3% of the outstanding debts related to the court-ordered protection from creditors. Argentina seized Aerolineas Argentinas from Spanish tourism company Grupo Marsans in 2009 and has since pumped money into the airline to expand and update its fleet.

The U.K.'s financial regulator broke ranks with its colleagues in Europe Thursday, urging banks to include the risk of a sovereign-debt restructuring in the euro zone in their stress tests, The Wall Street Journal reported. "In their stress testing, firms should consider a range of policy options in the euro-area peripheral countries, including a prolonged period of austerity and possible restructuring of bank and sovereign debt," the Financial Services Authority said in an annual survey that assesses the main risks facing the U.K.'s financial sector.

The Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into failed insurance broker Herbert Insurance Group, which was placed in receivership this month, The New Zealand Herald reported. SFO Director, Adam Feeley, said the office was investigating concerns about an apparent shortfall in the group's account, which hold clients' premiums. Feeley said the SFO was working closely with receivers, Korda Mentha, to identify all information relevant to the investigation. Herbert Insurance Group's client base of about 4000 has been sold to Aon New Zealand.

The Philippine central bank said on Thursday it placed Banco Filipino Savings and Mortgage Bank under receivership, saying 97 percent of depositors were fully covered by deposit insurance of up to 500,000 pesos ($11,400), Reuters reported. The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation started to take over Banco Filipino's head office and branches on Thursday afternoon to secure records and documents, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on its website. A Banco Filipino official said the bank had deposits of 17 billion pesos ($387 million) and 62 branches nationwide.

Mexican mortgage lender Hipotecaria Su Casita said Thursday it expects soon to conduct a swap and restructuring of around 7.4 billion ($612 million) in debt which includes transferring up to 50% of its equity to creditors, Dow Jones reported. The company fell into default last year as a result of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Su Casita, Mexico's largest nonbank mortgage lender which is 40% owned by Spanish bank Caja Madrid, said it's offering to exchange existing peso-denominated notes for MXN2.5 billion in new seven-year guaranteed notes and shares for up to 38.4% of its equity.

Germany is bracing itself for the loss of 5 million workers over the next 15 years as it becomes Europe's first and biggest test of the problems caused by an ageing and declining population. Having used generous job subsidies to steer the labour market through the country's worst downturn since the 1930s, labour and social affairs minister Ralf Brauksiepe told the Guardian on Thursday that a longer working life and an influx of skilled workers from overseas were the answer to the demographic time bomb.

The U.K.'s new financial regulator will focus on how to solve the problem of large banks taking on excessive risk because they are too important to be allowed to fail, a top official said Thursday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Andrew Bailey, who will be deputy chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said the reliance of banks on public funds was "the most unacceptable aspect" of the financial crisis that erupted in 2007. Solving that problem "will be the objective" of the PRA, he said in a speech in Manchester, England. The U.K.