Headlines

Widescale corruption and fraud perpetuated by former Nigerian leaders has driven the state oil company into insolvency, local media Thursday reported the head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp saying, Platts reported. Austen Oniwon, NNPC group managing director, told lawmakers from the Senate on Wednesday in Abuja that some of the country's past leaders caused to be withdrawn the sum of Naira 1.5 trillion ($10 billion) from the NNPC treasury for various uses other than oil and gas projects, Punch newspaper reported.

Dubai's debt-laden company Dubai World said after meeting creditors on Thursday that it will complete restructuring its remaining debts "over the coming months," Agence France-Presse reported.

AbitibiBowater Inc. is seeking to keep control of its restructuring for an extra three months so it can stay on track to emerge from bankruptcy early this fall, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The giant pulp-and-paper manufacturer is urging the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to extend the time in which it alone has the right to file a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization, which AbitibiBowater has already filed but is continuing to negotiate the terms of with its creditors. If the court doesn't agree to extend its exclusive plan-filing rights through Oct.

As investors anxiously awaited the results of official European bank stress tests due Friday, grumbling emerged from the private sector about the methodology and whether healthier banks would inadvertently be penalized by comparison with weaker institutions, The New York Times reported. A senior Spanish banker said Thursday that, while the stress tests should ease some of the uncertainty about the health of the European banking industry, the exercise would most likely benefit the most prudent banks least.

Premier Hotels Ltd, one of the subsidiaries of hotel management firm Prem Group, is facing liquidation after failing to agree a deal on a six-figure rent arrears bill with one of its landlords, The Irish Times reported. The company, which was a joint venture with developer Paddy Kelly and his family until they exited last year, has called a creditors’ meeting for early next month to appoint a liquidator. The company’s latest accounts only show figures for the year 2007 when it lost €245,000 before tax.

The number of bankruptcies recorded against debt managed by collection agency Baycorp has fallen sharply since the introduction of the no assets procedure (NAP) last year, The National Business Review reported. At the same time, the amount of legal action pursued by Baycorp in an effort to recover money owed to creditors has risen. The agency today said nearly 1300 bankruptcies were recorded against debt it managed in the first half of this year. Last year there were 6000.

Mexico's third-largest retail chain, Comercial Mexicana, aims to resume modest expansion next year with a handful of new stores once it completes its $1.54 billion pre-packaged debt-restructuring agreement, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Growth at Comercial Mexicana, which runs 231 stores and 73 restaurants, has been virtually on hold since October 2008 when blowout losses on foreign exchange derivatives - wrong-way bets on the Mexican peso - led to a debt default and the restructuring process, which is expected to be concluded within months.

PCCW and its chairman's privately owned fund plan to rescue debt-laden Vivacom, Bulgaria's biggest fixed-line operator, by jointly investing €180 million ($232 million) in return for a 51 percent stake, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. PCCW executive director Alex Arena met Vivacom's senior lenders on June 22 to discuss the matter, the South China Morning Post reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the meeting. It was unclear how much of the investment would come from PCCW, the paper said.

The Commercial Court has agreed to fast-track a landmark legal challenge by a developer against the National Assets Management Agency. The legal challenge by businessman Paddy McKillen and several of his companies presents a "very real threat" to the vital work of the Agency, the court heard on Monday, with the State arguing that the matter must be decided urgently, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. McKillen and 15 of his companies are seeking to prevent the transfer of €90 million worth of loans from Bank of Ireland to NAMA, claiming that the loans are not impaired.

What is the definition of a failed stress-test exercise? If you're an investment banker, the answer is simple: one that doesn't lead to any lucrative mandates to raise bank equity, The Wall Street Journal Heard on the Street blog reported. On that basis, the European exercise, whose results are due Friday, looks doomed. Finance ministers from several countries under the most scrutiny, including Greece and Spain, have been quick to declare their banking systems sound.