Headlines

The debt-laden owner of the British Columbia ski resort - where skier Lindsey Vonn became the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic Alpine skiing downhill run - has won an extension from its creditors that will postpone a foreclosure auction scheduled for Friday, according to Bloomberg, the Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. The extension gives the owner of Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort, New York hedge fund Fortress Investment LLC, more time to strike a deal with the resort’s creditors. In December, Fortress’s Intrawest ULC, which operates the resort, missed a payment on its $1.4 billion loan.

Willcom, a Japanese mobile phone company which has filed for bankruptcy protection, said the company will cut its equity to zero, Reuters reported. Willcom, Japan's fourth-largest provider of mobile phone and wireless data services, is 60 percent owned by a U.S. buyout fund Carlyle. The other shareholders are Kyocera Corp and KDDI. Read more.

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday urged Dubai to improve its handling of the debt restructuring of a major conglomerate and advised the emirate to reorganise the rest of its state-linked companies, the Financial Times reported. Dubai World, a troubled state-owned holding company, is restructuring $22bn of loans and bonds to local and international banks. But it has been criticised by bankers and investors for its lack of communication and transparency.

Dubai World is on schedule to present formal debt-restructuring proposals to lenders by March or April, and won't consider selling assets at distressed prices, according to people familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported. While asset-shedding is likely to be part of any restructuring plan, "it won't be a fire sale," according to one government official.

Willcom Inc. will file for bankruptcy protection with the Tokyo District Court on Thursday, initiating a pre-negotiated rebuilding process that will tap taxpayer money, the Nikkei business daily said. The personal handyphone system (PHS) service provider's rehabilitation efforts will be sponsored by Softbank Corp and investment fund Advantage Partners LLP, the paper said.

Japan Airlines Corp. won U.S. court protection while it reorganizes through its main bankruptcy case in Tokyo, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck in Manhattan today granted the Tokyo-based airline Chapter 15 protection in Manhattan court, giving Japan Air a shield against U.S. lawsuits and helping it to organize U.S. creditors’ claims. In operation since 1951, Japan Airlines is the largest domestic carrier in Japan and filed the country’s fourth-biggest bankruptcy. The company’s Jan.

Japan Airlines Corp plans to cut employee pay by 5 percent from April and eliminate bonuses in fiscal 2010 in an attempt to swiftly turn around its business, the Nikkei business daily reported. The proposed wage cuts are the first detailed restructuring plans to come out of JAL since the company filed for bankruptcy in January and was placed under the oversight of the state-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. of Japan, the daily reported.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has made the case to the EU’s new economics commissioner, Olli Rehn, that Ireland is now at a “different stage” to Greece and other weak euro-zone members thanks to stringent austerity measures he has taken, The Irish Times reported. Before euro group finance ministers discussed moves to bail out Greece last night, Mr Lenihan said at a meeting with Mr Rehn that he was cautiously optimistic that Ireland was turning the corner with an expansion of the economy in prospect later this year.

The Spanish government got a much-needed boost Wednesday when the nation's new €5 billion ($6.9 billion) bond issue was well received by investors, in spite of recent jitters over some euro-zone countries' public finances, The Wall Street Journal reported. The offering drew about €14 billion of interest from investors, a sign that—despite some recent doubts—Spain still has the confidence of bond markets. The deal followed bond sales by Portugal and Ireland, other nations that have been the source of some investor concern in the wake of Greece's woes.

Greece denied using complex currency transactions to mask its budget deficit in a 2008 meeting with European Union officials, according to the European Commission, The Wall Street Journal reported. According a report in German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Goldman Sachs helped Greece raise about $1 billion through 2002 currency swaps that weren't recorded in the country's budget data. The report alleged that the deal, which was linked to dollar- and yen-denominated Greek debt, used a "fictional" exchange rate to boost the country's income.