Headlines

If CanWest Global Communications Corp. is looking for a white knight investor, it won't be Ian Greenberg, The Globe and Mail reported. The chief executive officer of Astral Media Inc. put to rest any lingering talk in the industry yesterday that his company might seek to invest in Global Television. When asked by analysts if Astral would make a strategic investment in Global to get an inside track on buying specialty channels such as HGTV and the Food Network down the road, Mr.

Hopes have soared that huge amounts of water from Australia's most famous cotton farm could return to the Murray Darling river system, after administrators were appointed to handle the affairs of Queensland's Cubbie Station, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. After months of trying to sell the huge station and its water entitlement to governments and agricultural businesses, Cubbie chairman Keith De Lacy said the company would be handed to administrators today. ''In the end it was drought that beat us,'' he said.

After fighting off one threat to close it down, technology publisher Derwent Howard Media has thrown in the towel and gone into voluntary administration, The Australian reported. On Tuesday Worrells Solvency and Forensic Accountants was appointed as external administrator to the company, which publishes Australian Official PlayStation Magazine under licence from Sony Consumer Entertainment, Australian 360, and the Ultimate Guides series, among other titles.

Japan Airlines Corp said it would apply for assistance from a state-backed corporate turnaround body, setting the stage for a large injection of public funds into the troubled airline, Reuters reported. The government has been scrambling to secure financing and map out a restructuring plan for JAL, which is headed for its fourth annual loss in five years, weighed down by $15 billion in debt and crippling legacy costs.

Administrators for Australia’s Leading Solutions are looking for a buyer after the company went into voluntary administration, CRN reported. McGrathNicol took control of the privately-owned business and its assets today. McGrathNicol said in a statement that business will continue as usual and no staff were affected. Leading Solutions was established in the early 1980s, and provides technology to banks, hospitals, government departments, education authorities and SMB clients. Read more.

From the top of the tallest building to a ballpark, hospital and business school, the Canwest and Asper names brand the Western Canadian city of Winnipeg as the birthplace of a media empire. But like its rise, Canwest Global Communications Corp's rapid fall under the weight of a huge debtload is felt most acutely in Winnipeg, which the Aspers have long favored with donations and high-profile investments.

Norway on Wednesday became the first European country to raise interest rates after the financial crisis, lifting its key borrowing rate by 0.25 percentage point to 1.5% in response to signs of economic recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank also raised its interest-rate path projections in a new monetary policy report published alongside the rate decision, which signaled rates will rise to 2.75% by the end of 2010.

Dutch financial groups could face a €1 billion ($1.49 billion) bill from the failure of local bank DSB, disrupting their convalescence from the credit crisis, analysts said. ING and nationalised ABN AMRO alone could face a €450-million tab, according to analyst estimates, after small mortgage lender and savings bank DSB was declared bankrupt last week after a run on the bank drained deposits, Reuters reported.

National Australia Bank Ltd., the country’s biggest corporate lender, turned to its first loss in at least nine years after charges for bad debts climbed and it set aside funds for a tax settlement in New Zealand, Bloomberg reported. The net loss of A$75 million ($69 million) in the second half ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of A$1.85 billion in the year-earlier period, the Melbourne-based bank said in a statement today. Cash earnings, which strip out one-time items, rose 8 percent to A$1.81 billion.

Storm Financial handled its clients' margin loans badly, failing to protect them from sliding into dangerous margin call territory until months after the sharemarket plunged, a court has been told, The Australian reported. Kamal Arnaout, a service manager at the Commonwealth Bank's Colonial Geared Investments, was responsible for day-to-day dealings with Storm Financial over the lender's margin calls last year.