Headlines

The first meeting of creditors to Clive Peeters Ltd is expected no later than May 28 after the discount appliance retail was placed into voluntary administration by its banker National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB), the Business Spectator reported on an Australian Associated Press story. The move comes just two weeks after Clive Peeters warned that deteriorating sales would lead to four months of operating losses. McGrathNicol was appointed voluntary administrators for the company and its controlled entities on Wednesday after executives from Clive Peeters met NAB officials.

Real Mallorca have applied to the courts to go into voluntary administration in the next few days in a bid to sort out their finances, the Spanish club have said, Reuters India reported. Mallorca have been struggling with a debt of around €85 million ($103.4 million) and attempts to find a buyer to invest money into the club have so far been unsuccessful.

Supermarket operator Controladora Comercial Mexicana could soon become the first major test of Mexico's overhauled insolvency laws as it readies to file a "pre-pack" debt restructuring that would end months of negotiations with creditors. As shoppers filled their carts at the company's stores around Mexico, behind the scenes its creditors were hammering out a deal to resolve more than $2 billion of derivatives losses the country's No. 3 supermarket operator suffered at the height of the financial crisis.

The French government on Wednesday led European reaction against the German government’s move to ban the naked short selling of eurozone sovereign debt instruments, the Financial Times reported. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, ruled out a similar move by France and called for an urgent meeting of European securities regulators to discuss the implications of Germany’s unilateral ban. Sweden and The Netherlands also dismissed the German move, as European equity markets tumbled and the euro hit a fresh four-year low against the dollar.

A company which manages investment schemes in the Great Southern and around Western Australia has gone into administration, ABC News reported. Rewards Group Limited manages plantations of native Sandalwood near Narrogin and stone fruit and grapefruit orchards in Dandaragan and Kununurra. The company has been unable to pay debt amounting to tens-of-millions-of-dollars and is in the process of defending a multi-million dollar law suit from former Westpoint director Richard Beck. It's the fourth managed investment scheme in Australia to collapse in the past 18 months.

EU finance ministers backed new rules for hedge funds and private equity groups on Tuesday, spelling defeat for Britain's new coalition government at its first European Union meeting, Reuters reported. "We can basically say that we have the agreement we need to take a general approach (to tighter restrictions),” Spain's finance minister Elena Salgado told reporters as EU colleagues discussed the issue in Brussels.

Euro-zone politicians and central bankers repeatedly have said that a restructuring of Greece's debt isn't an option. One possible reason: Achieving a restructuring of the debts of an industrialized country won't be simple, The Wall Street Journal reported. Emerging-market episodes offer some clues as to the mechanics, but it is far from clear that a restructuring could achieve sufficient debt relief for a borrower without wreaking havoc elsewhere. First, there is a question of size. Greece has some €300 billion ($371 billion) of government debt.

Greece received the first installment of a three-year emergency-loan package from euro-region allies, allowing the country to repay €8.5 billion ($10.6 billion) of bonds due tomorrow and avoid default, Bloomberg reported. The EU completed the transfer of €14.5 billion, with 10 euro-region countries, including Germany, contributing to the first payment, the Athens-based Finance Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement. The International Monetary Fund, which is participating in the bailout, made its initial contribution of €5.5 billion last week.

Fraser Papers Inc. will sell off its remaining assets over the next 18 months as the insolvent company grapples with up to $500 million in claims from hungry creditors, the Telegraph-Journal reported. On Monday, the man pegged with guiding Fraser Papers through its final days detailed the obstacles still facing the company. Glen McMillan, appointed last week as chief restructuring officer, says the company's "key challenge" is selling its remaining assets. At this point, those assets primarily consist of a paper mill in Gorham, New Hampshire and two lumber mills in northern Maine.

Corporate debt restructuring in Mexico has jumped over the past few years as companies struggled with bad bets on derivatives as well as the effects of the global recession. While large Mexican companies rarely use the country's insolvency law, some major debt deals have been reached in the past year. Cemex S.A.B. de C.V., the world's No. 3 cement maker, which was hurt by a poorly timed $16 billion purchase of Australia's Rinker in 2007 and loaded up on debt just before the global financial crisis crippled its sales. Comercial Mexicana S.A.B. de C.V., the country's No.