Headlines

Nortel Networks Inc. won approval Wednesday from judges in Delaware and Ontario for the $900 million sale of a Nortel unit that makes communications systems for businesses, The Associated Press reported. In a joint hearing involving a video link between courtrooms in Wilmington and Toronto, where Nortel Networks Corp. is based, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross and Canadian Justice Geoffrey Morawetz approved the sale of Nortel Enterprise Solutions to New Jersey-based Avaya Inc. for $900 million in cash and a $15 million contribution to a Nortel employee retention program.

There is rough news for employees at Arclin Canada with word that workers in Thunder Bay are being laid off, Net News Ledger reported. The move comes as the company continues to restructure. On July 27, 2009, Arclin announced that it reached an agreement in principle with certain of its key senior lenders on the terms of a financial restructuring to strengthen the Company’s balance sheet and enhance its financial flexibility. Under terms of the agreement, Arclin’s funded indebtedness will be reduced from US$234 million to US$60 million.

Russian companies have restructured the lion's share of their problem debts but the issue will stay on the 2010 agenda, the local head of Austria's Raiffeisen said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Despite recent signs the worst has passed for Russia's economy, which has been struggling with its first contraction in a decade, more debt restructuring is inevitable, Pavel Gurin said.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said Barclays Plc got a $5 billion discount when it bought the North American brokerage business and some real estate days after Lehman’s bankruptcy filing a year ago, and wants assets back, Bloomberg reported. James Giddens, the trustee liquidating Lehman’s brokerage on behalf of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., also filed court papers yesterday stating Barclays continues to assert claims for “billions of dollars of additional assets” beyond the $47.4 billion set in the sale pact.

Unless government programs for the unemployed are refined, there is a danger that high jobless rates will persist beyond 2010 in advanced economies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned on Wednesday. The international organization said that unemployment among its 30 member nations would rise to nearly 10 percent by the end of 2010, above its previous post-1970 peak of 7.5 percent during the second quarter of 1993, The New York Times reported.

The World Bank yesterday issued its clearest warning to date that development efforts in poorer nations will be derailed without a huge increase in funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, The Guardian reported. The Bank's annual World Development Report warns that even if the G8 group of industrialised nations achieves its target of limiting global warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels, the increase in global average temperatures will still result in shrinking levels of GDP for many African and Asian countries.

Companies associated with Oakridge Resort in Wanaka are now being managed by a receiver, The National Business Review reported. The financier is South Canterbury Finance. The Southland Times reported yesterday that the companies placed in receivership are Nord Ltd, Oakridge Resort Ltd, Oakridge Resort Holding Ltd, Oakridge Land Holdings Ltd, Oakridge Pool and Spa Resort Ltd and Northern Link Developments Ltd. The receiver is Gordon Hansen of PKF Goldsmith Fox. South Canterbury Finance last month reported a $69 million loss, its first bottom-line loss since 1934.

Sen. Stephen Conroy, Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy announced on Tuesday that the telecommunications company Telstra must “structurally separate, on a voluntary and cooperative basis,” The New York Times DealBook blog reported. The reforms would promote competition and strengthen consumer safeguards, said Mr. Conroy in a statement. He noted that Telstra is presently one of the world’s most integrated telecom operators and that there have been more than 150 access disputes in the sector since 1997.

Government ministers are gloating over the decision by one of the country's leading economists, Henry Ergas, to put his consulting business into voluntary administration, The Australian reported. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy joked that Dr Ergas had been "structurally separated from his business" at the press conference announcing the government's plans to force Telstra to split its network business. Dr Ergas has long been an adviser to Telstra and has been critical of the lack of cost-benefit analysis of the government's broadband network.

Shermag Inc. and its subsidiaries today announced that its plan of arrangement has been duly sanctioned by the Québec Superior Court, the company said in a statement. This is a very important step for the finalization of the Company's reorganization and especially for the transaction that is to take place with le Groupe Bermex Inc., a transaction that has been approved by the Québec Superior Court on August 12 and that must be concluded by October 16. Headquartered in Sherbrooke, Québec, designs, produces, markets and distributes high-quality residential furniture.