Headlines

Ireland’s economic outlook worsened on Monday as the country’s central bank cut its growth forecast for this year, with gross domestic product now set to increase 0.2 per cent against previous forecasts of 0.8 per cent, the Financial Times reported. The slowing economy will compound the challenges the Fianna Fáil-led government faces in framing this year’s budget, which is critical to restoring investor confidence in Ireland’s fiscal consolidation plan.

Across Spain, towns that once reaped the benefit of housing-boom revenues are slashing budgets, cutting services and racking up debt. Together, according to Spain's central bank, the country's 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion ($18 billion), representing more than one-third of their €36 billion total debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. Economists say the situation is already suppressing Spain's economy and employment levels.

British-based oil drilling contractor KCA Deutag has appointed four restructuring experts as directors, just as debt renegotiation talks are set to intensify, sources close to the negotiations said, Reuters reported. KCA Deutag, owned by oil industry services company Abbot Group and trying to reach an agreement with lenders on $2.16 billion of debt to avoid a covenant breach, announced the new non-executives on Monday.

Bernard Callebaut is making a final bid to save his company which went into receivership in early August, The Calgary Herald reported. In a new release issued today, Callebaut said: "These have been very trying times, and strengthened by the love of my family and the support from Calgarians, I am sourcing investors who share my vision for quality." He said he was still considering offers from investors willing to join him in the bid process prior to the Wednesday deadline. Callebaut opened its first in Calgary in 1983.

Hipotecaria Su Casita SA, the private issuer of mortgage-backed debt that failed to sell itself to BBVA Bancomer SA, plans to present a restructuring plan to debt holders today, Bloomberg reported. The proposal includes offering short- and long-term debt holders equity in the company, new debt and cash payments, Su Casita said today in an e-mailed statement to Mexico’s stock exchange. Su Casita said Sept. 10 that it was evaluating “other alternatives” after a deal to sell part of its assets to the Mexican unit of Banco Bilboa Vizcaya Argentaria SA fell through.

Two years after investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and the financial system faltered, world leaders are deadlocked over key proposals for ensuring that such a crisis doesn't happen again, and concern is spreading that the chance for common action has waned, The Washington Post reported. Officials at agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank say they're worried about the loss of momentum, and private analysts are warning that narrow national interests could undermine further reform.

A bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved the $65 million sale of Nortel Networks Corp.'s multiservice switch business to Swedish telecom equipment vendor L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., signed off on the sale less than a week after Ericsson won an auction for the business. Ericsson beat out PSP Holding LLC, a special-purpose entity funded by Marlin Equity Partners and Canada's Samnite Technologies, which kicked off the Sept. 24 auction with a $39 million bid.

Latvia's center-right government was poised to stay in power Sunday after voters backed its plans to continue painful reforms required by an international bailout program to fix the Baltic country's crippled economy, the Associated Press reported. With about 98 percent of precincts counted, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis' minority coalition had mustered more than 57 percent of the vote in Latvia's parliamentary election Saturday. That would likely give it more than 60 seats in the 100-member legislature.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered Greece a major vote of confidence on a visit to the debt-ridden European nation, saying China will continue to buy Greek bonds and announcing the creation of a $5 billion fund to help Greek shipping companies buy Chinese ships, The Wall Street Journal reported. The remarks represent some of China's most substantive support for the euro zone amid the region's debt troubles, and reflect the Asian giant's growing willingness to wield its economic clout to obtain wider international influence. Mr.

George Osborne will tomorrow vow to stick by his controversial plan to wipe out Britain's £109bn structural deficit in one parliament, saying the alternative of delay would only hit the poor and consign the country to a decade of debt, the Guardian reported. In his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the chancellor will announce that every Whitehall department will have its head office staff cut by a third, promise to give the armed forces the tools to finish the job, and dismiss Britain's public service structure as designed for the 1950s.