Headlines

Asia's richest individuals lost 35% of their wealth amid the financial turmoil of 2008, compared with a 24% decline for that group world-wide, according to a joint study by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and consulting firm Capgemini. Regionwide, Hong Kong's elite got hurt the worst. Most of the city's wealthy -- 61.3% -- were kicked out of the elite category, which means their net worth slipped below the US$1 million threshold, the study says. The size of that market now stands at around 37,000 individuals in Hong Kong, a regional financial hub of seven million people.

Olive company Boundary Bend has bought all of Timbercorp's olive assets for $59.5 million, unlisted Boundary Bend said today, The Australian reported. The assets include 6012 hectares of olive groves in the Boort and Boundary Bend districts in Victoria, 26,121 megalitres of permanent water rights on the Murray and Goulburn rivers systems, an olive processing facility at Boort, and Timbercorp's 19.4 per cent equity interest in Boundary Bend.

Linens ‘n Things, whose brand name was bought out of its bankruptcy liquidation and now sells its products online, is ready for a rebirth in traditional brick-and-mortar stores, The Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. The company recently announced it would start selling a special line of home goods at the Home Outfitters chain in Canada. Starting next spring, shoppers at Home Outfitters will be able to browse Linens ‘n Things-branded bed, bath, home décor and seasonal products.

German analyst and investor sentiment unexpectedly fell for the first time in three months in October to hit its lowest level since July, suggesting Europe's largest economy will recover only gradually. The Mannheim-based ZEW economic think tank said on Tuesday its monthly poll of economic sentiment fell to 56.0 from 57.7 in September, pushing the euro lower against the dollar and the pound, and sending Bund futures to a session high. A reading of 58.3 had been forecast in a Reuters poll.

Argentina will be forced to default by 2011 unless the government reaches an accord with investors holding $20 billion of bonds kept out of the last restructuring offer, Stone Harbor Investment Partners says. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is negotiating terms of an agreement, which the government needs to regain access to international capital markets that it lost after stopping payments on $95 billion of debt in 2001, Bloomberg reported.

Former employees of Nortel Networks Inc. pressed MPs on Thursday to change federal bankruptcy legislation to provide more protection for pensioners and laid-off workers of insolvent companies, the Canwest News Service reported. After filing in January in Canada and the U.S. for court protection from creditors, Nortel said it would not pay severance to some laid-off employees and would trim pension benefits.

Japanese corporate bankruptcies fell at the fastest pace in more than four years in September, signaling that an easing credit crunch is enabling smaller firms to stay in business, Bloomberg reported. Business failures dropped 18 percent from a year earlier to 1,155 cases, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. It was the biggest decline since April 2005, when they fell 23.5 percent.

The Bundesbank will have significantly more oversight of Germany's banks under a plan drafted by the parties expected to form the next government, The Wall Street Journal reported. An agreement to vest the Bundesbank with more supervisory authority was reached Thursday during coalition talks. The changes, if implemented, would likely weaken Germany's financial-markets regulator, known as BaFin, because some of the oversight powers it now enjoys would be transferred to the Bundesbank.

Can Japan’s new leaders persuade their fellow citizens to stop hoarding money and thus ease one of the biggest structural problems plaguing the world’s second-largest economy? Democratic party policymakers fresh from their historic general election victory over Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democrats say they are determined to achieve an economic rebalancing that has eluded governments since the 1980s.

Insolvent German luxury fashion house Escada (ESCG.DE) has attracted interest from more than 10 potential investors, a source close to the matter told Reuters. Some 10-20 investors, including fashion companies, financial investors and wealthy families from all over the world had handed in non-binding offers to Escada's insolvency administrator, the source said on Thursday.