Headlines

Glen Grant Constructions, a company which supplies pipeline company Northern Network Alliance's sub-contractor EcoCivil, went into receivership yesterday, Sunshine Coast Daily reported. Northern Network Alliance manager John Palmer said he received a briefing at 9am from EcoCivil during which he was told the sub-contractor had released none of its staff despite the day's events. Mr Palmer said EcoCivil and the NNA had assisted PPB, the appointed receivers of Glen Grant Constructions, to locate and retrieve equipment and machinery.

Baskin Robbins and Cookie Man franchise holder Allied Brands has gone into voluntary administration, after the company lost its licence to operate 92 ice-cream stores in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Allied Brands administrator Vincents Chartered Accountants said this morning creditors had withdrawn from talks with Allied following the termination of its Baskin Robbins contract and the company was no longer able to trade as a going concern. Allied had been seeking to raise funds through a convertible bond issue and equity line of credit.

Banks are prepared to accept "appropriate" reforms to increase competition in the sector, the sector's peak body has declared. However Australian Bankers Association chief executive Steven Munchenberg also defended the decision of the Commonwealth bank to increase its key lending rates by almost double yesterday's official 25 basis point rise by the Reserve Bank Australia.

Nama loaned an extra €47 million to developers earlier this year, even though many were not repaying debts they already owed the asset management agency, The Irish Times reported. In the first six months of this year, Nama paid five Irish banks a total of €8.4 billion to acquire property loans with a nominal value of €16.4 billion. Figures for the second quarter, released yesterday, show of the 1,190 debts it acquired, 887 were “non-performing”, meaning the developers who originally borrowed the money were not meeting interest or principal repayments.

Amid the gloom hanging over the U.S. housing market, Australia continues to defy critics who say one of the world's few property hot spots is overdue for a correction, The Wall Street Journal reported. Another test will come at the landmark Sydney Opera House on Monday, when real-estate agency Ray White Ltd. holds an auction of 11 luxury dwellings, 10 in New South Wales, one in Queensland. The firm hopes the iconic venue will help persuade the invited bidders, mainly Asian, to snap up the properties, some for as much as 10 million Australian dollars (US$9.9 million).

The cost of insuring Irish government debt against the risk of default hit a record as investors continued to fret about the cost of bailing out the country's banks, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Insurance costs for other highly indebted euro-zone debt also rose amid ongoing worries about government finances. Insurance on $10 million of Irish debt, as measured by five-year credit default swaps, rose $27,000 to $525,000 a year, according to data provider Markit. One trader said Allied Irish Banks PLC's statement that the disposal of its U.K.

The number of companies globally at risk of defaulting on debt jumped in October for the third consecutive month, indicating deteriorating credit quality worldwide, risk management firm Kamakura Corp said on Monday, Reuters reported. The proportion of them at risk of defaulting on their debt leaped by 1.17 percentage points in October to 11.10 percent of the more than 29,000 companies Kamakura rates. The index has deteriorated for the last three months after generally seeing improvement for more than a year.

Greek deputy Prime Minster Theodoros Pangalos said on Sunday that in theory debt restructuring should not be completely disregarded for the heavily indebted nation but that deficits need to be dealt with first, Dow Jones reported. In an interview with local newspaper To Vima, later confirmed by the government, Pangalos said: "Before we reach the stage of a debt restructuring we have to finish with the deficit. But demonizing debt restructuring is wrong. Debt exists to be restructured.

Property investor Paddy McKillen has lost his Commercial Court action to prevent the transfer of some €2.1 billion of his loans to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), The Irish Times reported. Nama had argued the size of the loan portfolio represented a “systemic risk” to the Irish financial system, justifying acquisition in the national interest. The case represented the first major challenge to the manner in which Nama operates.

Canada's Davie Yards reports that it has obtained an order from the Quebec Superior Court extending the stay of proceedings ordered by the court under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act to January 21, 2011, MarineLog reported. The shipbuilder says the extension will allow it to continue discussions with potential industrial investors, to pursue its efforts to qualify for the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy , and to develop and eventually submit a plan of arrangement to its creditors under the CCAA.