Headlines

Halliwells has moved to appoint an administrator as the firm looks to secure a takeover by Hill Dickinson to transfer the bulk of its business and assets, Legal Week reported. Halliwells this week filed for court approval to appoint an administrator. This process triggered a moratorium on Halliwells' liabilities and is expected to provide a window to negotiate the future of the business, which the firm asserts is fundamentally strong on an operating basis. The expectation is that Halliwells will ultimately be dissolved after the transfer of assets.

South Korean banks have selected 65 companies to undergo a restructuring program - a majority of which will receive support from creditors to normalize operations - as the government pushes the banks to weed out weak businesses that could threaten the economy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service said in a joint statement Friday that of the 65 companies, 16 are in the construction sector, three in the shipbuilding sector and one in the shipping sector.

Dubai International Capital, a heavily-indebted investment arm of the emirate’s ruler, has dismissed speculation about a fire sale of assets by promising to keep its five majority-owned companies in Europe for at least two more years, the Financial Times reported. In a letter to the senior managers of its portfolio companies, DIC said it had already spent $300m on supporting its troubled investments, such as the UK hotel chain Travelodge and German industrial groups Almatis and Mauser.

No company has the ability to pay unlimited claims, even one that earned $16.6 billion last year and more than $20 billion annually in the prior four years. At the same time, no one has any idea how big BP’s damages will be, Bloomberg reported in a commentary. That hasn’t stopped Wall Street analysts from churning out estimates that move up in lockstep with the number of barrels thought to be leaking from the collapsed well each day. How many companies are willing to face unlimited civil claims, the prospect of criminal prosecution and daily excoriation by the U.S.

Romania’s Constitutional Court ruled against some government austerity measures aimed at narrowing the budget deficit, risking a delay in the next handout of funds from an international loan, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported. The leu weakened and stocks plunged. The nine justices said the plan to cut pensions by 15 percent was illegal, while a proposed 25 percent reduction in wages didn’t breach the Constitution. Parliament must now amend the law to comply with the ruling.

There's little that shouts "seriously rich" as much as a little island in the sun to call your own. For Sir Richard Branson it is Neckar in the Caribbean, the billionaire Barclay brothers prefer Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, while Aristotle Onassis married Jackie Kennedy on Skorpios, his Greek hideway. Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfill their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6,000 sunkissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts, The Guardian reported.

Debt-ridden Japan Airlines Corp plans to cut 1,886 contract and temporary workers, as part of the larger jobs cut announced in April, the Nikkei business daily reported. JAL, which plans to axe 16,000 jobs and stop 45 domestic and international flights, will not renew contracts of the workers, mostly in sales, maintenance and flight attendant positions, the paper said. The airline, which seeks 4,339 volunteers for early retirement across the globe, will lay off another 785 employees on airport duties, the paper said.

AbitibiBowater Inc. is seeking to pay fees to banks that will assist it in lining up more than $2.3 billion in capital that the newsprint maker says is necessary for it to emerge from Chapter 11 protection, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In papers filed Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., AbitibiBowater said lining up the necessary financing is "critical" as it prepares to seek permission to send its bankruptcy-exit plan to creditors on July 7 and emerge from Chapter 11 this fall.

Shaw Communications Inc on Wednesday won court approval for its C$2 billion purchase of Canwest Global's broadcast arm after it agreed to provide C$11 million to shareholders who had complained of being shut out of the deal, Reuters reported. The amended agreement, approved by Ontario Superior Court Judge Sarah Peppal, followed last-ditch negotiations that began early Tuesday and ran late into the night before resuming on Wednesday.

Plans by the Government to set up a contributory pension scheme for civil servants has stalled, leaving the retirement benefits time bomb that forced the government to push the retirement age to 60 years nearing explosion, Business Daily Africa reported. Treasury officials said the scheme, which was to come into force on Thursday next week, could not take off for lack of an appropriate law to support it. It will now await the outcome of the vote on the Draft Constitution, according to Anne Mugo, the Director of Pensions.