Headlines

The International Monetary Fund is ready to do deals. Bolstered by a big new balance sheet and the outsize ambition of its globe-trotting managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the I.M.F is now presenting itself as the indispensable institution in the sovereign debt crisis, The New York Times reported. Trying to shed its old image as a hidebound policy task master, the fund is refashioning itself as the investment bank of multilateral institutions — doing whatever it takes to get the deal done.

In the end, the billion-dollar auction of Canada’s largest newspaper chain wasn’t even close. Torstar Corp. and its deep-pocketed financial backer, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. -- once thought to be the favourites to buy the 46 papers that made up the CanWest Global Communications Corp. media empire -- instead placed a distant second in the bidding, The Globe and Mail reported. The winning offer this week came from a group of unsecured creditors who trumped Torstar and Fairfax’s $800-million offer by $300-million. The $1.1-billion bid came from a consortium that includes U.S.

The new management team at State-owned Anglo Irish Bank is reworking its proposed rescue plan for beleaguered Quinn Insurance to join forces with a foreign trade buyer to run the insurer and temporarily share ownership, The Irish Times reported. Anglo Irish is revising its proposals in an attempt to allay the Financial Regulator’s concerns about its ability to manage the firm by handing over control of the company to a large insurance partner.

A committee overseeing the remains of Icelandic lender Glitnir Banki Hf has sued several former bank officials and affiliated investors in the United States to recover more than $2 billion, Reuters reported.

Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. has succeeded in its quest to raise GBP105 million ($156 million) to stave off a bank foreclosure on EMI Group, people familiar with the situation said, giving the private-equity firm leverage in its battle with lender Citigroup Inc. over the fate of the legendary music company, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. EMI has until Friday to inform Citi that it has come up with the cash necessary to stave off default in mid-June.

Transurban Group said Monday that its Canadian pension fund shareholders are considering whether or not to lodge a revised takeover bid for Lane Cove Tunnel after it agreed to pay 630.5 million Australian dollars (US$569.4 million) for the tollroad operator, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Workers at newsprint maker AbitibiBowater have ratified a new collective agreement that includes cost reductions for the company, but protects pensions for retirees and workers, Reuters reported. The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) said on Monday that the new agreement will remain effective until 2014. AbitibiBowater, headquartered in Montreal but incorporated in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2009 after crumpling under a heavy debt load. Last week, the company filed what it called a "framework" for a plan of reorganization.

Rockforte Finance, the minnow finance company caught up in last year's liquidation of the Jeans Jones retail chain, has become the fourth lender guaranteed by the government to fail, BusinessDay reported. Katherine Kenealy and Dennis Parsons of Indepth Forensic have been appointed receivers of the Gisborne-based lender, which owes some 70 investors about $3.2 million. The Treasury confirmed all eligible depositors are covered by the government’s guarantee.

Paul Godfrey, a veteran media executive with a salesman’s touch, has been given the biggest turnaround assignment of his business career: taking charge of Canada’s largest newspaper chain after a group of investors won the bidding for it, The Globe and Mail reported. The 46 publications, including the National Post, once formed a major piece of the now-crumbling CanWest Global Communications Corp. media empire and were sold Monday to unsecured lenders for $1.1-billion. The deal wraps up an auction process that began when the newspaper unit filed for creditor protection in January.

The European Union agreed on an audacious €750 billion ($955 billion) bailout plan in an effort to stanch a burgeoning sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece but now threatens the stability of financial markets world-wide, The Wall Street Journal reported. The money would be available to rescue euro-zone economies that get into financial troubles. The plan would consist of €440 billion of loans from euro-zone governments, €60 billion from an EU emergency fund and €250 billion from the International Monetary Fund.