Headlines

Mexico's largest glass maker, Vitro SAB, said it intends to file a prepackaged restructuring plan under that country's bankruptcy law no later than next Thursday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The company, which recently launched a plan to restructure some $1.2 billion in debt, said Wednesday it has the "requisite majority" of votes to proceed with a prepackaged plan under concurso mercantil, Mexico's equivalent of Chapter 11.

Iceland's finance minister said today he backed a deal with Britain and the Netherlands over debts incurred in a bailout of depositors in a failed bank, while opposition parties were more cautious, the Irish Times reported. Icelandic negotiators said yesterday they had a draft deal offering better terms than one rejected by voters in March for repaying the $5 billion (€3.8 billion) the two countries spent reimbursing British and Dutch Icesave account holders.

French bank Natixis Thursday denied allegations made by a trustee seeking to recover assets for victims of Bernard Madoff's investment fraud, The Wall Street Journal reported. A lawsuit filed late Wednesday is seeking around $1.4 billion from seven U.S. and European banks, including Natixis. The trustee, Irving Picard, said the lawsuits, which were filed under seal, accuse the banks of overlooking warning signals about Mr. Madoff's fraud while receiving transfers of money from his firm through so-called "feeder funds" that invested most or all of their assets with him.

Ireland's lawmakers narrowly voted Thursday to cut welfare benefits and debated a raft of other cost-slashing measures, but their efforts to combat Europe's worst deficit didn't stop the Fitch agency from slashing the nation's credit rating, the Associated Press reported. A legislative bill to cut payments to the unemployed, single parents, children, the blind and disabled passed on an 80-75 vote that reflected Prime Minister Brian Cowen's slim majority in parliament.

AbitibiBowater, the large newsprint maker formed through a merger three years ago, announced it had emerged from bankruptcy protection on Thursday, the International Herald Tribune reported. Debt and declining newsprint demand in North America led the company to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, as well as similar protection under Canadian receivership laws, in April 2009. The restructuring cut the $8.78 billion in debt to just over $1 billion, mainly by having creditors exchange their claims for equity.

An Italian court sentenced Parmalat SpA founder Calisto Tanzi to 18 years in prison for his role in the 2003 collapse of the Italian dairy firm, wrapping up a seven-year investigation and trial into one of Europe's biggest corporate bankruptcies, The Wall Street Journal reported. Parmalat filed for bankruptcy in December 2003 after information emerged that a decade-long fraud had left the maker of long-life milk, yogurts and juice saddled with €14 billion ($18.57 billion) in debt. The savings of thousands of bondholders around the world were wiped out.

The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Bernard Madoff's investment firm joined an English liquidator on Wednesday in filing an $80 million lawsuit against former directors of the convicted felon's London operation, including his sons and brother, and related entities, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The suit was filed in the United Kingdom's High Court of Justice Commercial Court by trustee Irving Picard and Stephen J. Akers, a joint liquidator of Madoff Securities International Ltd.

K1 Group hedge fund founder Helmut Kiener’s personal assets were placed under the control of a court-appointed administrator less than two weeks after he was charged with running an international fraud scheme, Bloomberg reported. A court in Aschaffenburg, Germany, opened preliminary insolvency proceedings on Nov. 25 after a creditor request, according to a filing in Germany’s online insolvency registry. The creditor was a health insurer, insolvency judge Juergen Roth said in an interview today.

Wind Hellas Telecommunications SA’s bondholder-led plan to restructure the company by injecting 420 million euros ($555 million) and writing off debt in exchange for control of the company was approved by a London court, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported. Under the plan by senior secured floating-rate noteholders, Wind Hellas’s 250 million-euro revolving credit line would be repaid in full, while the company’s senior secured notes and 355 million euros of subordinated bonds will be written off, according to a statement Oct. 18.

The deadline for second-round bids for Quinn Insurance passed yesterday as the likelihood of a sale to a trade buyer grows amid uncertainty over the future of State-owned Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish Times reported. The bank has submitted a joint bid with US insurance giant Liberty Mutual, which has also submitted an offer to take over the general insurance part of the firm. Anglo has shelved plans for a solo offer due to considerable regulatory hurdles facing the proposal as the cost of the bank has soared to as much as €34 billion.