Headlines

European speculative-grade companies are expected to be able to refinance $316 billion of debt maturing in the next four years to 2014 in the high yield bond market together with bank funding, rating agency Moody's Investors Service Inc. said in a report Tuesday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The European high-yield bond market has boomed in 2010 as lower-rated companies have refinanced existing debts and investors jumped on the opportunity to top up their low returns in the current low-yield environment.

French strikers are extending their protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed overhaul of the pension system as the government rebuffed calls to drop its plan to increase the retirement age, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported. The Paris metro and long-distance trains will be disrupted for a second day after some unions opted to stay off the job, as did port workers in Marseille. The government said it won’t back down on a plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, saying it’s necessary to save the pension system.

Sam Coco is ready to step in to save the fruit store chain he founded after it was placed into voluntary administration last week, GoldCoast.com.au reported. The veteran retailer, who sold the Cocos business seven years ago, said he was prepared to roll up his sleeves and reopen at least the two stores that anchor his own shopping centres at Carrara on the Gold Coast and Annerley in Brisbane. The veteran fruiterer, who built a chain of 10 stores from humble beginnings in 1990, sold the business in 2003 to former Bi-Lo founder and millionaire retailer David Weeks.

Singapore billionaire Peter Lim increased his offer for Premier League soccer club Liverpool FC to £320 million ($508 million), hoping to trump a bid by New England Sports Ventures LLC of the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, lawyers for current co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett said in a London court that they had received a bid from a U.S. hedge fund, as they tried to prevent Liverpool's board from completing a sale of the club to NESV. The board last week voted to accept a roughly £300 million bid from U.S.

Galway-based Airline Aer Arann has signed an investment agreement which should ensure the survival of the company as a going concern, the High Court heard yesterday, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. Speaking at a hearing on the progress of Aer Arann’s examinership process, counsel for the Examiner, Rossa Fanning said that a signed investment agreement had been executed. The plans should result in Aer Arann leaving examinership. The agreement is with the Stobart Group, a listed UK logistics company, which announced that it was heading a consortium that was investing in the airline.

Greece's deficit-reduction efforts are starting to bear fruit in the debt markets, where the nation sold a batch of short-term bills at a yield lower than a previous, similar auction, The Wall Street Journal reported. Hungary, which isn't a member of the 16-nation euro zone, also cut its funding costs at an auction Tuesday, as investors appeared increasingly confident about the government's pledge to bring the budget deficit to below 3% of gross domestic product in 2011, from this year's target of 3.8% of GDP.

Speculation is mounting about whether Victorian-based Bendigo Mining will push the northern Tasmanian mine into receivership, ABC News reported. BCD Resources, formerly Beaconsfield Gold, and Bendigo Mining were poised to merge in November with Bendigo lending BCD $5 million. Bendigo now says that BCD has breached the agreement. Unless it can repay the money by tomorrow, Bendigo may move to recover the money from the Beaconfsfield mine, the merger will be off and receivership could be on the cards. Neither company has released information explaining the breaches.

The battle for control of Liverpool went to court on Tuesday, with a bank trying to force through the sale of the Premier League club to the owners of the Boston Red Sox over the objection of the current American owners, the Associated Press reported. Royal Bank of Scotland, which holds the bulk of Liverpool's debt, is seeking a court order preventing co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. from removing two of the three rival board members supporting a 300 million-pound ($476 million) sale to the Boston group.

Bernard Callebaut has found an investor to make a bid for his chocolate company, which was placed in receivership in August, The Calgary Herald reported. His wife Francesca said they are "working with a company here in the city" and will put in a proposal Tuesday. Earlier in the week, Callebaut said he was seeking investors and if that option didn't work, he had developed a plan that would see him making chocolates under a new brand identity.

Takefuji Corp., once the symbol of the era of rapid growth in consumer finance, filed for bankruptcy protection in late September under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law, Asahi.com reported in an editorial. Takefuji's failure is not the simple saga of the demise of a single company. It poses a big question to the entire consumer credit industry: How can the sector push through the reforms needed to carve out a viable future for itself? Takefuji collapsed under the crippling burden of refunding borrower claims of overpaid interest.