Headlines

Spanish jobless claims rose again in March, adding to signs of a softening economy amid growing political uncertainty, The Wall Street Journal reported. Jobless claims rose by 0.8% to 4.3 million in March from February, a new record high, the ministry said in a statement Monday. In annual terms, March claims were up 4% from a year earlier. The ministry didn't give an unemployment rate, but data last week from the European Union's statistics arm Eurostat showed Spanish unemployment stood at 20.5% in February.

The €24 billion bank recapitalisation plan is positive for Ireland's financial system but negative for its creditworthiness, credit rating agency Moody's said today, highlighting the possibility of another downgrade, the Irish Times reported. Moody's warning comes on the heels of Standard & Poor's one-notch downgrade of Irish debt and Fitch's flagging of another rating cut amid concerns about Ireland's ability to deal with one of the world's costliest bank bailouts.

Google Inc. has been selected as the stalking-horse bidder for the entire patent portfolio of former telecommunications giant Nortel Networks Corp., administrators for the insolvent Canadian company said Monday, the Financial Post reported. Mountain View, California-based Google has entered a bid of US$900-million for a portfolio of more than 6,000 patents that cover device and network technologies. Google’s stalking-horse offer is designed to attract higher bids from other interested groups, which could include BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. An auction is slated for June.

France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde pledged Monday to cooperate with investigators probing her involvement in the arbitration process related to the bankruptcy of formerly state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has warned that proposed changes to rent legislation would “significantly impact” on its ability to repay the debt it has issued, the Irish Times reported. The agency is “very concerned” about the impact any move to allow retrospective rent reviews could have on the value of its assets. Any such legislation would have a “dramatic reduction in the value of the income-producing assets transferred to Nama” because investment properties are valued on a multiple of their annual rent.

Treasury has warned the federal government that the river of company tax revenue that has supported the budget for the past eight years is drying up, with payments falling massively short of budget projections, The Australian reported. A Treasury executive minute to Wayne Swan has blamed the strength of the Australian dollar and the run of Reserve Bank rate rises for the shortfall, and says the government should not expect the minerals boom to bring a quick turnaround.

Dutch car maker Spyker Cars NV Friday said its funding situation was tight as its Saab Automobile unit continued to burn cash faster than expected, and it warned that the Swedish auto maker's future was in doubt if it couldn't secure additional financing, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In its annual report published Friday, Spyker reiterated it was in talks to improve its financing and said it was confident it would happen. But how and from whom Spyker intends to get the required cash remains unclear.

The Japanese government is considering financial aid to the troubled Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, through an injection of public funds or debt guarantees, a government official said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Unless the government takes such a step it will be difficult for Tepco'' over time to secure necessary capital, Masayuki Sudo, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in an interview Friday morning.

The Irish finance minister said on Friday the country’s debt burden was “sustainable” despite the government’s commitment to support the latest bank recapitalisation, the Financial Times reported. Michael Noonan said the €24bn ($34.1bn) the banks have been told to raise to provide an additional capital buffer “will not add very much to the imposition on the taxpayer”. Ireland’s bank bail out has already cost €46bn. If the state ends up funding this latest recapitalisation, it would lift the bill to €70bn or more than 40 per cent of 2009 Gross Domestic Product.

The International Monetary Fund on Saturday denied a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that it was privately pressing Greece to restructure its debt. "As we have said consistently, the IMF supports the Greek government's position of no debt restructuring and its determination to fully service its debt obligations. Any reports claiming otherwise are wrong," an IMF spokeswoman told Reuters. Without citing any sources, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF had reversed its previous opposition to the idea of a Greek restructuring and now believed one was necessary soon.