Headlines

Greek civil servants warned on Monday they could call more strikes if the Socialist government unveils tough austerity measures to cut its deficit and ballooning public debt, Reuters reported. The ADEDY public sector union already plans a 24-hour strike on Wednesday as Prime Minister George Papandreou puts the finishing touches to a deficit-cutting plan, endorsed by the European Commission to pull Greek finances back from the brink.

Group of Seven financial leaders agreed on the need to continue supporting their economies until financial recovery takes a firmer hold, but they have yet to reach a consensus on how to overhaul regulation of their financial sectors, The Wall Street Journal reported. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said leaders were unable to make collective decisions on a U.S. proposal to limit proprietary trading at commercial banks, partly because financial institutions in countries including France, Germany and Japan aren't plagued by the same issues as U.S. banks.

German officials said they were weighing fresh offers from informants after deciding last week to pay €2.5 million ($3.4 million) for the names of suspected tax evaders in what is rapidly evolving into a broad attack on Switzerland's system of banking secrecy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Over the past week, German officials have launched a tactical and rhetorical assault on Swiss banking, a strategy that appears to be aimed at undermining both Switzerland's tradition of secrecy and its pre-eminence as a tax refuge.

Canadian mast climbing manufacturer Hydro Mobile has restructured under new owner, Quebec-based AGF Group. The company has come out of the Canadian Companies' Creditor's Arrangement Act, which is similar to Chapter 11 in the United States. Hydro Mobile will remain as the same brand with the same face and products, the company told American Lift & Handlers at the recently held World of Concrete. They will focus their energies toward new areas, such as industrial markets. AGF Group is a small scaffolding company specializing in rebar and installation.

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd has roped in US firm Seabury Aviation and Aerospace to advise on restructuring its operations and help the airline boost performance on the back of a reviving domestic industry, the Economic Times of India reported. Prakash Mirpuri, Vice President, Corporate Communications, told Retuers on Monday that fleet optimisation would be one of the areas the consultancy would advise Kingfisher on. The airline has a fleet size of 66 aircraft. Mirpuri did not say how soon Seabury would come up with its recommendations.

Government-finance specialist Dexia SA agreed on a restructuring deal with European regulators Friday, ending months of indecision over its future, The Wall Street Journal reported. The lender, which was handed a €6.4 billion ($8.7 billion) lifeline when it became engulfed in debt during the credit crisis, promised to sell off about 35% of its balance sheet to offset the competitive advantages it gained from state subsidies and guarantees. Before the credit crisis, Dexia was a major lender to local governments.

Salthouse Marine Ltd, a historic and respected New Zealand maker of motor yachts, is in the hands of a receiver and is closing with the loss of about 50 jobs, TVNZ reported. Receiver John Price of HPL Partners said he was called in last Thursday by a private investor. "I have closed the company and all of the staff have been laid off," Price said. Two boats near completion were being finished and a decision was yet to be made on a large project. He declined to put a figure on the size of the receivership.

The number of people entering into insolvency in England and Wales rose to a record total of 134,142 last year, official figures from the Insolvency Service showed today, and experts say the figure is likely to rise further in 2010, The Guardian reported. Rising unemployment and the ongoing impact of the credit squeeze drove the figure beyond the previous record of 107,288 personal insolvencies set in 2006, and meant that over the course of the year one in every 320 adults entered into formal arrangements with their creditors.

Non-performing loans in China have risen into the “trillions of renminbi” because of poor lending practices, an insolvency lawyer said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “We work really closely with SASAC, the state-owned enterprise regulator in China, and there are literally trillions and trillions of renminbi of, frankly, defaulting loans already in China that no one is doing anything about,” Neil McDonald, a Hong Kong-based business restructuring and insolvency partner with Lovells LLP, said at an Asia-Pacific Loan Market Association conference yesterday.

Prime Minister George Papandreou got a measure of relief Friday in his fight to curb Greece's runaway deficit, as protesting farmers scaled back highway blockades in opposition to the government's austerity measures, The Associated Press reported. The prospect of strikes and protests have raised fears Papandreou won't be able to push through an austerity plan aimed at dousing the country's financial crisis, which has undermined the euro because markets fear Greece may default on its debts.