Headlines

Vitro SAB offered to buy back or swap $1.2 billion in debt from bondholders as the company prepares to seek bankruptcy protection before the end of the year. The bonds jumped and shares climbed to the highest in more than two years, Bloomberg reported. Mexico’s largest glassmaker will file for bankruptcy in Mexico and under Chapter 15 in the U.S. within the next two months, Chief Restructuring Officer Claudio del Valle said in a conference call with reporters today. Debt holders may get as much as 73 cents on the dollar under the terms proposed today, the Monterrey-based company said.

A stagnant climate in the property market could last for months, after the usual spring lift in the market failed to show up in October, real estate industry website realestate.co.nz says, The National Business Review reported. Spring is a pivotal time in the property market, as better weather returns and more houses are usually listed. In October, 11,911 properties came onto the market, a 12.1 percent drop from the same month last year.

One of WA's major dairy companies has gone into voluntary administration, after weeks of speculation that it was on the verge of collapse, ABC News reported. South West-based Challenge Dairy announced today it has gone into voluntary administration, admitting it owed substantial amounts to farmers. About half of the state's dairy farmers supply milk to the company, and a number of them say they have not been paid for milk supplied last month.

The Tokyo District Court has decided to start bankruptcy protection procedures for consumer lender Takefuji Corp., its administrator said Sunday, The Japan Times reported on a Kyodo News story. Takefuji, snowed under by mounting refund claims for excessive interest charges, filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 28. The number of borrowers who haven't sought reimbursement yet is meanwhile estimated at anything from 1 million to around 2 million, with potential claims estimated at ¥1 trillion to ¥2 trillion.

The Australian division of Krispy Kreme doughnuts has gone into voluntary bankruptcy, the company said, UPI reported. With bankruptcy, which is referred to as voluntary administration in Australia, the company is seeking to find a way to save any parts of its business. Krispy Kreme spokesman Matthew Horan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday the company troubles were the result of several poorly performing stores.

The government debt burden shouldered by employees in the rich world will more than double between 2007 and 2015 as an ageing population puts rising strain on welfare and health systems in advanced economies. In new calculations for the Financial Times, Eswar Prasad, a former International Monetary Fund official now at the Brookings Institution and Cornell University, finds that the rich economies will owe a rapidly rising share of public debt worldwide, while contributing relatively less to global growth.

French bank officials lashed out Friday at a European plan to restrict bankers' bonuses, arguing it will put the lenders at a competitive disadvantage and complicate their operations outside Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported. At a public hearing in London, bank executives and industry groups complained about rules that will force European banks to change the way they pay bonuses. The rules will require that a greater portion of the payouts take the form of stock rather than cash and that a large chunk is deferred several years rather than paid immediately.

One-third of Hawke's Bay's apple business will soon be for sale, with Opey Holdings Ltd and Edenz Ltd joining Mr Apple, placed on the market by receivers, Hawke’s Bay Today reported. South Canterbury Finance receiver McGrathNicol has appointed investment bankers Goldman Sachs & Partners New Zealand Ltd as sale advisers for investment assets owned by the finance company, including Scales Corporation of which it owns 80 per cent. Deutsche Bank AG has been appointed as sale adviser for SCF's core finance business. South Canterbury Finance was put into receivership in August.

Claiming a violation of rights to free movement, the European Commission Thursday said it has asked France to change a law that excludes nonresidents from enjoying limits on the taxes that wealthy citizens pay, a change the French government fears will force it to refund some revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde rejected the request, saying it didn't seem legitimate that France should refund taxes that may well have been paid to another country on the income in question.

Ireland's central bank proposed on Thursday stricter requirements for how financial services firms deal with customers as part of efforts to beef up consumer protection in the aftermath of a disastrous property crash, Reuters reported. Years of reckless lending brought Ireland's banks to the brink of collapse and have left many borrowers struggling to repay hefty mortgages. The Central Bank of Ireland wants lending practices tightened to prevent a repeat of the banking crisis.