Headlines

Sazka AS, the Czech Republic's struggling state-owned lottery company, Monday said it has teamed up with two domestic financial firms to repay overdue principal on its euro-denominated bonds and stave off bankruptcy. "Sazka [can now] provide the financial means necessary to prevent the company from moving into insolvency," said Martin Ulcak, owner of E-Invest, a privately-held Czech financial company that is one of the two firms partnering with Sazka. Most of the capital will come from Penta Investments, a Slovak-Czech private equity firm.

A Japanese bank agreed to sell $100 million of loans related to Dubai World before completion of the state-owned entity's debt restructuring plan, Reuters reported on a story from The National. The bank, which the paper did not name, began selling its loans last summer before Dubai World reached an agreement with its creditors in September, The National reported, citing sources that it did not identify. A sale agreement reached last week would provide the Japanese bank with between 60 cents and 65 cents on the dollar.

Australia’s cost of living, having already outpaced inflation, is about to surge, according to economists at JPMorgan, The Australian reported. The cost of living for Australian workers rose 60 per cent faster than the official inflation rate of 2.8 per cent in the year to October, 2010, when workers needed 4.6 per cent more after-tax income to compensate for higher living costs, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest cost of living index.

Ireland's main opposition party Fine Gael on Friday said the next government would be forced to "unilaterally" restructure the debt of Irish banks if agreement cannot be reached with Europe on senior bond holders sharing the cost of recapitalizing the country's insolvent banks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Fine Gael, the favourite to form the next coalition government, said ideally senior bond holders in nationalized banks, such as Anglo Irish Bank Corp. and Irish Nationwide Building Society, would be forced to share the burden through a Europe-wide framework.

The UK's largest pre-pack administration in which EMI's executives in effect wrested control of the music company from private equity firm Terra Firma last week may prompt financial sponsors of other highly leveraged businesses to review their groups' structures to prevent such management seizures, International Financing Review reported. Citigroup took control of EMI through the largest pre-pack administration seen in the UK at 3.4bn pounds.

A dispute over loan security with their bank prevented the Taggart brothers from bringing up to £70 million of new capital into their construction business and ultimately led to its collapse, according to Michael Taggart, who confirmed at the weekend that he and his brother John are suing Ulster Bank, the Irish Times reported.

Small Danish bank Amagerbanken said on Sunday that it failed to meet solvency requirements and had agreed to be taken over by state administrators who will wind up the bank's remaining activities, Reuters reported. Amagerbanken, the 10th small Danish bank to fall into the state's hands due to the effects of the 2008-09 financial crisis, said in a statement that fourth-quarter writedowns had wiped out its equity. It said it had agreed to transfer its assets to Finansiel Stabilitet A/S, the state company that administers failed banks, and the administrators would close the bank.

The National Asset Management Agency has lost a legal challenge in the Supreme Court taken by property investor Paddy McKillen to stop the transfer of €2.1 billion of loans to the State’s “bad bank”, the Irish Times reported. The seven-judge court unanimously allowed his appeal – overturning a High Court ruling – after it found Nama had never at any stage made a legally valid decision to acquire Mr McKillen’s loans. The Supreme Court ruled the decision taken by Nama to acquire his loans was taken before the agency was legally set up and no subsequent act changed this.

New Zealand’s unemployment rate rose more than forecast in the fourth quarter, sending the local currency lower and reducing the case for the central bank to raise interest rates in coming months, Bloomberg reported. The jobless rate increased to 6.8 percent from 6.4 percent three months earlier, Statistics New Zealand said today. The median estimate of 10 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for 6.5 percent. The New Zealand dollar fell to 77.41 U.S. cents at 1:11 p.m. in Wellington from 77.76 cents before the data.

The pay television arm of Wollongong-based WIN Corporation has collapsed after several years of trading unprofitably, leaving a multimillion-dollar debt trail, the Illawarra Mercury reported. Satellite-based broadcaster SelecTV, headed by Andrew Gordon, son of WIN Corp owner Bruce Gordon, went into voluntary administration last week. WIN Corp seized control of SelecTV in 2006 in a $46.9 million takeover bid and has reportedly sunk more than $10 million into the business. Industry sources last year estimated it was losing $1 million a month.