Headlines

TLC Vision Corp. has agreed to sell its six laser eye centres in Canada as part of a pre-arranged creditor protection filing on Monday that will see the eye-care company emerge as a private entity, the Financial Post reported. The centres, currently known as TLC Laser Eye Centres, will operate under the TLC Canada banner once the sale to a group of Canadian investors is completed, a spokesperson for TLC said. No details on the sale price have been released.

Spyker Cars' chief executive expects a decision in days on whether the company has been successful in a bid to buy Sweden's Saab Automobile from U.S. parent General Motors, Reuters reported. Saab, one of Sweden's best-known brands, has been hoping an 11th-hour saviour would turn up after parent GM said last month it would wind down the carmaker if a buyer did not appear before the end of December.

“Can you beat the IMF?” invites the board game box, emblazoned with a top hat decorated in the stars and stripes and stuffed with dollars, on shop shelves in Argentina, the Financial Times reported. While the world has been devouring reality television shows, many Argentines have been opting this Christmas for reality board games, such as Eternal Debt, involving the International Monetary Fund.

The coming year will be better for the U.K. jobs market than 2009 but unemployment is expected to continue rising in the first half of the year and peak around 2.8 million in the summer, a report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dr. John Philpott, chief economic adviser to the CIPD, said if the economic recovery is weaker than expected, unemployment could rise even further to 3 million in 2010.

Britain's leading companies are devising pay schemes that enable top executives to escape the new 50p rate of income tax for high earners that takes effect in April, the Guardian has learned. Some of the biggest companies in the country are constructing complex pay schemes that risk infuriating government ministers, who are determined to crack down on tax avoidance. Some of these schemes are "nakedly" intended to allow senior boardroom bosses to pay a tax rate of 18% instead of the 50% top rate, according to one industry expert.

On June 30, managers acting for Trio Capital poured $47 million into a fund that is now being investigated to determine the whereabouts of $118 million in hedge fund investments, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The annual report of Astarra Strategic Fund, one of 24 Trio Capital managed investment schemes now under administration, reveals that on June 30 its assets were topped up with the $47 million transfer of assets.

A Scottish MP is calling for an investigation into Britain's insolvency industry amid growing concern about the fees that leading accountancy firms are earning during the recession, The Independent reported. Scottish Nationalist Party regulatory spokesman Mike Weir accused accountancy firms of cashing in at the expense of the creditors of companies that have gone under – and of benefiting from a lax regulatory system that enables them to spend years winding up companies while continuing to earn fees.

Belgian soccer club Excelsior Mouscron were kicked out of the first division on Monday after declaring they would fail to play for a third time this season, the Belgian Football Association said. Mouscron, who are under administration due to debt, have not put out a team for their last two scheduled matches and told the league and FA that they would be unable to field a side on Wednesday, The Times of India reported. The club's elimination from the league means that all their results are void.

Under the Italian government's tax amnesty plan, assets worth €95 billion (about $137 billion) have been declared, of which 98% will be repatriated in Italy, the Italian Economy Ministry said Tuesday, citing data as of Dec. 15. In an emailed statement, the ministry also said that the extension of the tax amnesty to April 2010 would be the "last one and definitive." In December, Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti announced the extension of the plan but with higher fees. Italians who repatriate assets by Feb.

Bankruptcy has been proposed by a state-backed fund as an option in the restructuring of Japan Airlines Corp., two sources familiar with the matter said, Reuters reported. The state-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan (ETIC) has been holding talks with creditor banks on how to revive JAL, and is expected to make a final decision on whether to support the struggling carrier next month.