Headlines

Credible efforts by Greece's government to clean up its finances have so far negated the need for any bailout from the European Union, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Friday. In offering a strong vote of confidence in the new Greek government, Ms. Lagarde said in a Wall Street Journal interview that Greece had "for once, over-delivered from what was expected" in terms of legislation intended to cut spending. Whereas she had expected cuts worth 1.5% of gross domestic product, the government had come up with 2%, she said.

A string of villages on the outskirts of Beijing has become the unlikely focus of a national discussion about China's stubbornly tough job market for young people, as officials meet in the capital for the annual session of China's legislature, The Wall Street Journal reported. Government statistics show 87% of college graduates found work last year. But many graduates doubt those figures, and they say that jobs that are available often pay a barely livable wage.

General Motors of Canada Ltd. has rejected calls to follow its parent company's example and voluntarily reinstate dealers who were terminated when the auto maker restructured its operations last year, saying courts and arbitrators should rule on demands by some dealers that their businesses be restored, The Globe and Mail reported. "We cannot rewrite history," Marc Comeau, GM Canada's vice-president of sales and marketing, said in a letter to Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) president Rick Gauthier and the company's remaining Canadian dealers. That answer to Mr.

Bidders for Canwest LP, the newspaper division of Canwest Global Communications, will soon be visiting operations in the chain they hope to purchase, The Vancouver Sun reported. Canwest announced Friday that an unspecified number of suitors have been invited to participate in Phase 2 of the sale process, which will involve management presentations, site visits and further due diligence before the submission of binding proposals.

Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group LLC, the investment company owned by Dubai’s ruler, will avoid debt restructuring as its balance-sheet and cash-flow profile appear “sufficiently strong,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “The company’s contractors, despite being owed a substantial amount of money, are likely not in a position to trigger a default,” Zafar Nazim, a London-based analyst at the bank, wrote in the report dated March 12.

Strategic Finance investor John Lacey was cock-a-hoop on Friday when he heard the company had been placed in receivership. The former accountant, nicknamed "the jackal", had campaigned for 18 months to have receivers appointed and felt vindicated, Business Day reported. Strategic owes about 12,800 debenture investors, many of them retirees like Lacey, a collective $372 million. So far the only creditor to receive anything from Strategic is corporate financier Bank of Scotland International, which had a prior charge for $25m plus interest of about $3 million.

As a consequence of decades of bargains struck between strong unions and weak governments, Greece has promised early retirement to about 700,000 employees, or 14 percent of its work force, giving it one the lowest average retirement ages in Europe at 61, The New York Times reported. Greece’s patchwork system of early retirement has contributed to the out-of-control state spending that has led to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

The high interest rates Greece must pay to borrow money are threatening the county's ambitions to cut its deficit, raising again the specter it may need external aid, The Wall Street Journal reported. Many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief last week when Greece successfully sold €5 billion ($6.85 billion) in government bonds in an auction that saw investors clamoring for the debt. The sale was seen as a key test: The country needs to borrow about €54 billion this year.

Willcom Inc., the Japanese wireless carrier that filed for bankruptcy protection, is seeking financial aid of as much as 137.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) to revive the company, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Willcom is asking for 114.5 billion yen in debt waivers, while investors led by Softbank Corp. and Advantage Partners LLP will buy 11.3 billion yen of shares in the company and a spinoff, Willcom said in a statement today. The mobile operator will also receive as much as 12 billion yen in financing from state-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp.

Strategic Finance Ltd is now in the hands of receivers, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. John Fisk and Colin McCloy of PricewaterhouseCoopers were on Friday appointed receivers of the finance company by trustee Perpetual Trust Ltd. The receivership ends a moratorium the company had been operating. Strategic Finance is a specialist property financier whose business was mainly funded by debentures. In August 2008 it withdrew its prospectus and suspended all payments to security holders.