Headlines

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB isn't willing to grant Greece special treatment to alleviate the country's economic turmoil even as Athens's latest plan to deal with the crisis was met with skepticism by investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. "No government or state can expect from us any special treatment," Mr. Trichet said following the European Central Bank's monthly meeting. The comments, which came as the ECB kept its key lending rate unchanged at 1%, helped push the cost of insuring Greek sovereign debt against default to a record.

Three British banks may have to pay more than $US10 billion ($10.7 billion) to the US government as part of Washington’ss crackdown on financial institutions bailed out by taxpayers, The Australian reported. Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 84 per cent owned by the government, may be on the hook for almost $US1 billion to the US over the next decade under a stringent new levy announced by Barack Obama’s administration yesterday.

Strategic Finance expects to record a loss of $84 million in the last half of 2009, The National Business Review reported. The troubled finance company announced the provisional loss in a letter sent to investors today. The figure was $51.2 million more than the official loss for the same period in 2008 ($32.8 million) and meant the company’s loan book would be more than 75% less than what it owed to investors. In the letter, chairman Denis Thom said some of the company’s larger loans had “become more distressed” as debt tied up in property proved tough to recover.

China's pullback from stimulus efforts, which were geared toward grappling with the financial distress, is likely to affect Korea in deciding when to employ its own exit strategy, The Korea Times reported. China, Korea's largest trading partner, began to withdraw its expansionary policies this week with its central bank raising lenders' reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points.

Manchester United’s owners will use cash from the 18-time English soccer champion to reduce hedge- fund debts that helped pay for their 2005 takeover, said an investor familiar with the matter. The Glazer family is trying to raise 500 million pounds ($816 million) in a bond issue, and plan to wait before using 70 million pounds to pay their debts to avoid negative publicity, club officials told the investor, who attended a sales presentation and declined to be identified. The option to transfer the cash to the Glazers is outlined in bond documents.

Icelandic pleas for further aid met with a cool response on Thursday as the IMF suggested its hands may be tied by an Anglo-Dutch debt impasse and Sweden signalled no immediate funds were on the way, Reuters reported. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said a solution for the so-called Icesave issue was not a condition for aid but the Fund still had to listen if members raised issues. "If a lot of members think we have to hold on, we have to hold on," Strauss-Kahn told journalists in Washington.

Greece unveiled a three-year plan to slash its budget deficit on Thursday but financial markets remained sceptical it can deliver on the cuts and put a swift end to a fiscal crisis, Reuters reported. Under pressure by EU peers to reduce a huge debt that has prompted some economists to question its euro zone membership, the government said it would aim to cut its budget gap to 2.8 percent of GDP in 2012 from 12.7 percent. Doubts centred around the plan's forecasts for growth over the next two years, as well as the government's will to take unpopular policy steps.

Germany's Blue Wings is looking for funds following a dispute with shareholder Alexander Lebedev, as financial problems led regulators to ban the Duesseldorf-based airline from flying, Reuters reported. The carrier halted flights earlier on Wednesday, mere hours before German aviation authorities revoked its operating license for the time being, according to a spokesman for the company. Blue Wings' financial woes, which have left its staff without pay since mid-November, stem from a lack of financing from shareholders, the spokesman said.

The government has effectively gotten Japan Airlines Corp.'s main creditor banks to agree to let JAL file for bankruptcy under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law, and the carrier may do so Tuesday. It remains unclear, however, how Japan's biggest airline can be resurrected under court-led restructuring. In a Q&A, The Japan Times reported on questions and answers regarding the Corporate Rehabilitation Law and how it may be applied to JAL. Read more.

An order for summary judgment for €62.5 million has been entered at the Commercial Court against beleaguered developer Bernard McNamara over his personal guarantee of loans given by private investors for the €412 million purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle site at Ringsend, The Irish Times reported. Mr McNamara has already said he cannot pay the €62.5 million sum and the entry of summary judgment orders for €62.5 million against him, plus €98 million against his company Donatex, exposes him to other claims by creditors.