Headlines

Skyservice had survived recessions and dips in travel demand before, The Globe and Mail reported. This past winter marked its eighth year of serving tour operator Signature Vacations and the 15th year of flying on behalf of Sunquest Vacations, which is owned by Thomas Cook Canada Inc. And Skyservice appeared to have had access to a steady stream of revenue from its two major customers until the fall of 2012, court files show. But this time was different. In January, Signature completed its merger with Sunwing Travel Group, which operates its own fleet of planes.

Paper and packaging firm Grant U.S. Holdings GP followed its Canadian parent into bankruptcy on Thursday, a day after the Canadian company won approval to sell some of its assets, court documents showed, Reuters reported. Grant U.S. Holdings, a unit of Canada's Grant Forest Products Inc, has listed estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $500 million to $1 billion, according to the Chapter 15 filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

The International Islamic Financial Market, the Bahrain-based organization seeking to set standards for Islamic securities, may issue new global guidelines to facilitate the sale of Shariah-compliant bonds, an official at the industry body said, BusinessWeek reported. “There is no one, cross-border, common benchmark for sukuk,” IIFM’s Chief Executive Officer Ijlal Ahmed Alvi said in an interview in Dubai last week.

Wilbur Ross, the billionaire US turnaround specialist, has bought a 21 per cent stake in Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Money for £100 million as the group prepares to make a major assault on the UK banking market, The Scotsman reported. Ross, nicknamed the "King of Bankruptcy", is also prepared to pump in "hundreds of millions" more to fund acquisitions, including Virgin's £2 billion bid for 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches. Virgin will join Clydesdale Bank owner National Australia Bank and Santander in submitting a bid for the RBS assets ahead of tomorrow's deadline.

A central Victorian gold mining company will return to business after going into voluntary administration 18 months ago, ABC News reported. Creditors of GBGM Operations were owed about $800,000 when the company's gold mine at Inglewood had to scale down operations. But the company has offered to pay the money back early next month and yesterday creditors voted to accept the offer. Managing director John Cahill says the company hopes to re-list on the stock exchange. He says it will also allow more people to be employed at the Inglewood mine.

Greece has run out of cash and it is fast running out of the ability to borrow at anything but the most punitive rates. Yet borrow it must, thus putting itself in an ever more precarious position, The Wall Street Journal reported. It is the originator of its difficulties, but, far from helping, those fellow euro-landers it turned to for salvation have merely exacerbated its problems. This became painfully apparent this week as the country's attempts to refinance its maturing debt managed only a grudging response, despite an interest coupon struck at an excruciatingly high 6%.

Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg's debt-laden Oerlikon has clinched a deal to restructure its balance sheet, solving a financial headache that pushed the company to the edge of bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The plan, which involves a capital hike, the waiving of debt by lenders and a debt-to-equity swap, will boost Oerlikon's equity base by up to 1.3 billion Swiss francs ($1.23 billion) and reduce net debt by around 77 percent.

Japan Airlines Corp's main lenders on Thursday decided to demand drastic cuts to international service in exchange for further aid to the debt-ridden carrier, the Nikkei business daily reported. JAL's four main lenders -- the Development Bank of Japan, Mizuho Corporate Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp -- decided not to shell out further financial aid without solid evidence that earnings are set to grow, the paper said.

Britain's banking industry should fear the prospect of Britain's Liberal Democrat party gaining greater influence in the aftermath of a tight U.K. election, party leader Nick Clegg said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Liberal Democrats are Britain's third-largest party, and may be on course to play a kingmaker role after a spring election.

Kenya may be headed for a jobless recovery, economists said, citing new labour market data showing that the productivity of workers has declined to record levels, forcing businesses to turn to capital for additional capacity to keep pace with growth, Business Daily Africa. The data from the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) shows that economic hardships linked to soaring inflation and skills deficiency has shackled productivity growth on factory and shop floors, making workforce expansion unattractive to business leaders.