Headlines

A company which promised to turn Whangarei into a world centre for superyacht-building has gone into receivership, The National Business Review reported. New Zealand Yachts would continue to trade, receiver and manager Paul Sills, of Auckland law firm Hornabrook Macdonald, said. Caterpillar Financial New Zealand Ltd started the recovery process after New Zealand Yachts' loans became due on November 1, the Northern Advocate reported. The super yacht-builders came to Whangarei in 2001, promising to create up to 1000 jobs.

The European Central Bank on Friday showed unexpected impatience to unwind emergency steps taken to combat the economic crisis, announcing plans to tighten the terms on which it lends liquidity to eurozone banks, the Financial Times reported. The surprise announcement of tougher standards for asset-backed securities used as collateral highlighted how far the ECB is planning its “exit strategy” to dismantle measures taken after last year’s collapse of Lehman Brothers. These included expanding the range of assets eligible as collateral.

In a major bid to go global, India's Reliance Industries Ltd., the world's largest polyester fiber maker, has made an all-cash offer for bankrupt chemicals company LyondellBasell Industries, Dow Jones reported. Neither LyondellBasell nor Reliance disclosed the value of the deal, but the Indian company could pay as much as $12 billion, according to analysts, based on valuations prevailing in the U.S. chemicals industry. If a deal is struck, it would be among the largest international acquisitions by an Indian company and would create a global energy and chemicals powerhouse.

Two Deutsche Bank funds were designed to profit from premature deaths in the US by buying up life insurance policies. But investors have seen precious little return on their investment, Spiegel Online reported. Angry customers are accusing the bank of fraud. There is cause to suspect "that from the very beginning, the promised dividends were not achievable using any realistic suppositions," Gerhard Strate, a well-respected lawyer based in Hamburg, wrote in his complaint.

Struggling carrier Japan Airlines Corp plans to propose cutting pension payments to its employees and retirees by an average of roughly 40 percent, a Japanese newspaper said on Saturday, Reuters reported. JAL President Haruka Nishimatsu will present the proposal at a meeting with retirees in Tokyo on Monday, the Mainichi Shimbun said without citing any sources. Whether the company will gain the support of at least two-thirds of its former employees needed to carry out such cuts to pension payments is unclear, Mainichi added.

When the late Joerg Haider, the hard-right populist governor of the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, sold most of his government’s stake in Hypo Group Alpe Adria in 2007, he said, beaming: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Carinthia is rich,” the DealZone blog reported. BayernLB, which like many other German landesbanken appears to have never met a toxic asset it didn’t like, had just paid 1.65 billion euros for a 50 percent stake in Hypo. Around half of that went into Haider’s government’s coffers.

The future of the Unanderra-based Wideform Group of Companies is up in the air with suggestions that a major bank lender may be pulling back support for the business, the Illawarra Mercury reported. The Australian Financial Review (AFR) today reported that the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group was believed to have sought to facilitate a process whereby the business would go into voluntary administration and a new owner would be found.

New Zealand’s South Canterbury Finance is trying to recover $10 million by selling Wanaka's largest resort but the resort's owner believes his financier will be lucky to get half that, The Southland Times reported. Six companies associated with Oakridge Resort were put into receivership by South Canterbury Finance in September after defaulting on loan repayments. Oakridge developer Par Hallberg, who moved to Australia after losing control of the resort, confirmed his companies owed $10.49 million to the finance company.

Saskatchewan's largest hog producer, Big Sky Farms Inc., owes its creditors nearly $96 million, documents related to the company's recent filing for creditor protection show. Big Sky has a $95,929,249 balance on its list of creditors as of Nov. 10, the same day it applied for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, the Meat Trade News blog reported. The hog producer owes the most money -- $71 million -- to Scotiacapital, its senior credit facility. It also owes $10 million to another five other secured creditors, including Golden Opportunities Fund Inc.

A motion by Canadian Sailing Expeditions’ largest creditor to place the Halifax-based cruise company in receivership was granted Friday, The Chronicle Herald reported. The Caledonia, Canadian Sailing Expedition’s luxury 75-passenger sailing vessel tied up in Lunenburg, and other assets will now be sold off by court-appointed receiver BDO Dunwoody Goodman Rosen Inc. It is not yet known how much taxpayers may have to fork out in connection with the company’s receivership.