Headlines

Spanish football teams are shooting for a new goal: To break even. In an effort to tackle reckless spending and rising debts among the 20 La Liga clubs, the country's top teams will be subjected to financial regulation by a new independent body established by the Spanish government to ensure that teams are living within their means, The Wall Street Journal reported.

AbitibiBowater Inc, the world's largest newsprint maker, plans to emerge from bankruptcy with a simplified structure so it can take on the challenge of declining demand, its chief executive said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Montreal-based company said on Monday it has the support of unsecured creditors for a reorganization plan that would swap unsecured debt for equity. Post-bankruptcy, the company would have consolidated its debt with the parent company, eliminating debt that was issued by dozens of U.S.

U.S. celebrity fashion house BCBG Max Azria Group is backing the bid led by billionaire Nicolas Berggruen for insolvent German department store chain Karstadt, Reuters reported. A spokesman for Berggruen said on Tuesday Azria was supporting Berggruen's bid, which he launched late on Friday.

Europe on Wednesday unveiled plans to levy a new insolvency tax on banks but insisted the proceeds will remain within national borders and will not be used to bail out failed banks, Agence France-Presse reported.

Japan Airlines Corp. said Tuesday it will postpone by two months the submission of a restructuring plan to the court as it seeks to flesh out details of the plan, Dow Jones reported. The airline, currently under court-led restructuring after filing for bankruptcy protection in January, initially intended to present the plan to the Tokyo district court by the end of June. The court has agreed to the new deadline, JAL said.

The former chief financial officer of an Australian disability employment group has told a court he and his wife spent tens of thousands of dollars on the group's credit cards because he thought there was no limit to a tax exemption it received as a benevolent organisation, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Mustafa Koraiem, of Mosman, was overseeing the $25 million annual turnover of Cumberland Industries when he was approving his wife's and his own private expenses as salary sacrifices through the company's accounts, the Federal Court has heard.

The 87-bed Killeshin Hotel in Portlaoise, which is backed by Bernard McNamara, has been placed into receivership, The Irish Times reported. Gearóid Costello, a Limerick-based partner with Grant Thornton, has been appointed as receiver to the business by Anglo Irish Bank, which is believed to be owed about €20 million. It is understood that Pembroke Hospitality has been appointed to manage the four-star hotel, which will remain open and will trade as a going concern.

The Italian government is asking citizens to make sacrifices to help get public finances in order and protect the country from the sort of market speculation that pushed Greece to the brink of bankruptcy, The Associated Press reported. The Cabinet meets later Tuesday in Rome to approve €24 billion ($30 billion) in hotly contested spending cuts in 2011-2012 which reportedly include pay freezes for most public workers - and cuts for those highest paid - and may see trims to the nation's revered health system.

Spanish central bank officials sought Monday to reassure nervous depositors after taking over ailing Church-controlled savings bank CajaSur over the weekend and firing its senior management, The Wall Street Journal reported. For the Bank of Spain, the cleanup of a mutual savings bank that holds just 0.6% of the country's banking assets shouldn't prove difficult. But the seizure of CajaSur comes as authorities grapple with a sector reeling from the collapse of the housing market at the same time that the government is hard-pressed to fix its own finances.

AbitibiBowater Inc. is seeking the green light from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to rework its accounts-receivable securitization facility to take advantage of improving business conditions, a move the company says will save it millions of dollars in the coming months, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Canadian paper maker, which sought bankruptcy protection more than a year ago to restructure its crushing debt load, says it can save $4 million over the next five months by reworking the securitization program with a group of banks led Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Capital Inc.