Headlines

Greece has agreed the outline of a €24 billion austerity package, including a three-year wage freeze for public sector workers, in return for a multibillion-euro loan from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, according to people familiar with the talks, the Financial Times reported. Final details of the measures, which were intended to slash the budget deficit by 10-11 percentage points of gross domestic product over the next three years, were still being worked out, a senior government official said.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. pressed its case Thursday that former executives of the firm were conflicted as they worked on closing a deal to sell its assets to Barclays Plc in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman, which is fighting to recover billions of dollars from Barclays, has claimed top executives working on the sale had conflicted loyalties because they were negotiating new employment contracts with Barclays when they were supposed to be acting on Lehman's behalf.

Property investment company St Laurence has been placed in receivership by its trustee a day after the company put forward an alternative debt for "equity" swap, The National Business Review reported. Perpetual Trust has appointed Barry Jordan and David Vance of Deloitte as receivers of St Laurence, which owes 9,000 investors $245 million. The move to receivership comes after St Laurence indicated yesterday it was insolvent and could no longer meet its scheduled moratorium payments to investors.

A leading Australian fruit exporter has collapsed with debts in excess of A$10m (US$9.25m). Mildura-based JAK Fruit Pty Ltd, run by managing director Jason Kotz, went into voluntary administration on Tuesday 27 April, the Sunraysia Daily reported. The company's primary interests were exporting citrus and table grapes, and it also exported avocados. Administrator Wayne Benton from Melbourne-based insolvency company BRI Ferrier said Mr Kotz had called his firm to ask them to take control of the company, with JAK Fruit owing growers A$4.1m and its banks around A$6m.

Ukraine's state railway said on Thursday it planned to sign an agreement by May 20 to restructure $440 million remaining from a syndicated loan of $550 million, Reuters reported. The loan was organised by Barclays in July 2007 and matured in 2009, according to Thomson Reuters Loan Pricing Corp data. Its total size is now $440 million after the company made an initial August 2009 payment of $110 million. "We have been holding talks for the past three months and I hope a new credit agreement will be signed by May 20," railway director Mykhailo Kostyuk was quoted as saying.

Anglo Irish Bank may have to be wound up in the long term, but an immediate liquidation would not benefit taxpayers, according to the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, The Irish Times reported. The final cost of bailing out the bank, the biggest casualty of the property bubble’s collapse, could run to €22 billion, but the Government has insisted that it will be kept as a going concern since the State took over the institution in January 2009. Speaking to the Dáil yesterday Mr Lenihan said he accepted that a longer-term wind down of the bank is an option that must be examined.

Fears that Greek debt crisis will spread to other eurozone nations intensified on Wednesday when Spain suffered a debt downgrade from Standard & Poor’s, sending the euro to fresh lows against the dollar, the Financial Times reported. The downgrade, by one notch from AA plus to AA, dealt a blow to Spain’s frantic efforts to avoid contagion from Greece and followed S&P downgrades this week of Greece and Portugal.

Dubai International Capital Wednesday sent a letter to senior lenders of German aluminum company Almatis, urging them to vote against a restructuring plan from distressed-debt investor Oaktree Capital, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The letter comes on the eve of Almatis' management filing to place the company in U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings as part of Oaktree's restructuring plan to more than halve Almatis' $1 billion debt to around $422 million.

The board of finance company St Laurence Limited have told its investors that either they vote to swap their debt for shares, or the company will go into receivership, nzherald.co.nz reported. Some 9,000 investors owed NZ$250 million in frozen funds agreed to give the company until 2013 to repay 70 per cent of its debentures. A meeting has now been called where these same investors will be asked to exchange their debenture stock and capital notes for shares in St Laurence holdings - the company set up to acquire the finance company's assets.

Creditors of Daewoo Motor Sales Corp. Tuesday stepped in to keep the vehicle sales and real estate development company afloat reversing an earlier decision to let it go bankrupt after failing to pay back maturing debts, but the decision appears to be a stopgap measure, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Tuesday morning creditors paid a combined KRW26.8 billion ($24 million) that was due on Friday and Monday, giving Daewoo Motor Sales a lifeline, main creditor Korea Development Bank said. "But we cannot guarantee payment of additional debts that mature from May.