Headlines

Oaktree Capital Management LP is willing to give up its fight for control of Almatis BV, a bankrupt aluminum maker, for full payment of its loans and an end to threatened legal action, according to a "confidential" court filing on Monday, Reuters reported. In a letter dated July 27 to an Almatis lawyer, Oaktree's lawyer outlined six conditions for ending Oaktree's battle with Dubai International Capital LLC over the European aluminum company.

A U.K. Court of Appeal ruled in favor of hedge funds that maintained their client money, held in the main European arm of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., wasn't properly protected when the investment bank collapsed, The Wall Street Journal reported. The development is the latest aspect of the complex effort to return cash and other assets to Lehman's clients after the bank failed in September 2008. Lehman's bankruptcy, with more than $600 billion in total assets, ranks as the largest U.S. corporate failure.

AIB’s pretax losses could be as high as €3 billion when the bank releases its interim results this week – a key week for the European banking sector as a range of banks provide updates on impairment charges, capital strength and cost reduction programmes, The Irish Times reported. The extent of the decline in the bank’s pre-provision operating profits and its update on impairments to development loans that have not been transferred to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) are set to be under the spotlight on Wednesday.

The four-star Osprey Hotel and Spa in Naas has become the latest hospitality victim of the recession as failures in the sector continue to mount, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. AIB appointed a receiver over Naas Developments Limited, the company behind the hotel, last week. The Leinster area appears to be bearing the brunt of the hospitality downturn and the latest appointment brings to eight the number of hotels which have entered receivership in the area in recent months.

Two decades after embarking on perhaps the most dramatic – and chaotic – privatisation drive in history, Russia is planning to sell stakes in major state companies to help balance its budget and restructure its economy, reversing a recent policy of boosting Kremlin control over big business, The Irish Times reported.

Investors are understandably scared of the sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe. Amid their angst, however, they are ignoring a more likely, and significantly larger, debt catastrophe that is about to hit the nation with the second-largest economy in the world — Japan. Two decades of stimulative, low-interest-rate fiscal policy have made Japan the most indebted nation in the developed world, and as new Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently said, in his first address to Parliament, that situation is not sustainable, Seeking Alpha reported.

Gangsters, drug dealers and money launderers appear to be playing their part in helping shore up the financial stability of the euro zone, The Wall Street Journal reported in its Brussels Beat blog. That's thanks to their demand, according to European authorities, for high-denomination euro bank notes, in particular the €200 and €500 bills. The business of issuing euro notes, produced at almost zero cost, is "wildly profitable" for the ECB, wrote Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, in a recent research report.

Sea Launch Co LLC, a provider of commercial satellite launches, received court approval for its reorganization and will emerge from bankruptcy under Russian ownership, according to court documents filed on Friday, Reuters reported. Sea Launch will exit bankruptcy with a $200-million line of credit and $155 million in new equity investment by Energia Overseas, a Russian company. Energia will end up with 95 percent of the company.

Britain announced plans to scrap the fixed retirement age next year, saying it wanted to give people the chance to work beyond 65, but business leaders warned the move would create serious problems, The Washington Post reported on a Reuters story. Currently, employers can force staff to retire at the age of 65 regardless of their circumstances and without having to pay any financial compensation. Under the government's consultation proposals, the default retirement age (DRA) would begin to be phased out from April 2011 and come to an end by October next year.

The debt-ridden Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), the state-run housing company, says its financial troubles will force it to kill or water down most of its 140 new housing and redevelopment projects around the country, The Korea Times reported. And the government, caught between letting the air out of the bubble and creating another one, is quick to turn its back on its ailing mule, although its ineptitude in real-estate policies is blamed for creating much of LH’s troubles in the first place.