Headlines

Nelson businessmen behind failed financier Finance & Investments are now under the watch of the Securities Commission, having agreed they won’t manage a company or raise money publicly in the future, The National Business Review reported. The Securities Commission has accepted enforceable undertakings from Andrew Harding and Murray Scholfield - the partners of Finance & Investments, which went into receivership in September 2007, owing $16 billion to 370 investors. The pair also had an 87% stake in Nelson financier LDC Finance -- also in receivership.

Europe's banks, two years ago gripped by liquidity crisis, this month are enjoying a widening access to willing buyers of their bonds in global capital markets. It was only in late 2008 that leaders such as the U.K.'s then-finance minister Alistair Darling described how the banking system was only hours away from apocalyptic collapse, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. What's clear is that two years of massive infusions of central bank cash, state-funded bank bailouts, new emergency funding facility for governments and other new buttressing have soothed many nerves.

Bailed-out Bank of Ireland won European Union regulatory approval on Thursday for its restructuring plan after pledging to sell assets and wind down some portfolios, Reuters reported. Ireland's biggest bank by market value received 3.5 billion euros ($4.45 billion) of capital injection and other state aid last year due to the credit crisis and the bursting of the Irish property boom. Under the restructuring scheme, the bank will reduce its presence in certain markets by selling assets as previously announced, the European Commission said.

AbitibiBowater Inc. on Thursday pushed off until July 30 a preliminary hearing on its Chapter 11 exit plan, as talks continue with investors clamoring for a piece of the paper-maker's $500 million debt-rights offering, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Aurelius Capital Management LP and Contrarian Capital Management LLC say their $620 million claim entitles them to participate in the deal, part of AbitibiBowater's bankruptcy emergence financing.

Kenyans should use the recently launched credit information sharing system to negotiate favourable terms and lending rates with commercial banks, the financial services sector regulator, the Central Bank of Kenya, has said. The bank fears that the system is beginning to look like an additional weapon in the hands of lenders to tighten the rules for individual and household borrowers to the exclusion of potential benefits.

Italy’s Senate is on Thursday expected to approve the centre-right government’s controversial €25bn austerity package, with Silvio Berlusconi resorting to a vote of confidence to ram through his cuts in the face of considerable dissent from within his own coalition, the Financial Times reported. The unpopular package is then expected to be taken to the lower house for final approval, again in a vote of confidence, by the end of the month.

Finance company minnow Mutual Finance has collapsed into receivership owing $9.3 million of mostly Crown guaranteed funds to 340 depositors, The National Business Review reported. The receivership follows that of sister company Viaduct Capital and comes three months after Strategic Finance founder Paul Bublitz took control of Mutual with an 80% shareholding. Mutual’s trustee company Covenant has appointed Grant Graham and Brendon Gibson of KordaMentha as receivers.

Retailer Comercial Mexicana said Wednesday that it has submitted its prepackaged $1.54 billion debt-restructuring agreement to a Mexican court with 98% of its creditors on board, Dow Jones reported. Comercial Mexicana said in a press release that the restructuring agreement, which was announced in late May, has the support of all of its derivatives counterparties and bank creditors, and 88% of its bond creditors. The restructuring already has been approved by the company's shareholders. Under the agreement, the company will issue new debt in pesos and U.S.

Hundreds of Irish people have had their travel plans thrown into disarray following the collapse of the 1800hotels.ie. online travel company, The Irish Times reported. The company, which handles bookings for some 70,000 hotels around the world, said last night that it had been forced into bankruptcy proceedings in the United States as it attempted to restructure its debt. In a statement, a spokesman for the company said some customers might experience room cancellations. The 1800Hotels spokesman said it was pursuing a legal injunction to prevent any further disruption to customers.

Spanish banks' recourse to European Central Bank funding hit a record high in June, against a backdrop of intensifying turmoil on financial markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spanish banks raised €126.3 billion ($160.6 billion) in funding from the ECB in June, up 48% from €85.62 billion in May, according to data the Spanish central bank published on its website Wednesday. The June borrowings are the largest on Bank of Spain records dating back to 1999.