Headlines

Centro Properties Group, one of Australia's highest profile casualties of the global credit crisis, was given a lifeline on Tuesday when lenders agreed to refinance $4.65 billion in overdue debt, Reuters reported. Without the refinancing, Centro could have been forced into administration by its creditors, potentially triggering a fire sale of retail properties in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Centro has been struggling to sell shopping centres to help pay down debt after credit markets froze following its rapid expansion in the United States last year.

Syscan International Inc., a provider of RFID-enabled supply chain solutions, has announced that it has filed under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and that H.H. Davis & Assoc. Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, has been appointed by the court to handle matters with its creditors, FOXBusiness reported. The board decided to pursue this course of action after the expected private placement with Bluehill ID failed to materialize and after previous attempts to raise capital and effect a company merger and sale were unsuccessful.

As a third of Britain’s 4.7 million smaller businesses struggle to get credit, many are seeking insolvency advice, fueling a boom in U.K. corporate recovery, Bloomberg reported. Begbies Traynor Plc, which helped Wrexham FC soccer club avoid bankruptcy, and Tenon Group Plc are hiring to cope with demand. “Mainstream lending has evaporated and these companies can do more due diligence in terms of lending to small businesses,” said Tom Mills, a Manchester-based analyst at Daniel Stewart & Co.

Two friends who defaulted on a six-figure loan are about to find out through their Facebook page a mortgage lender's lawyers are on their trail, the Herald Sun reported. In an Australian and possibly world first, two lawyers have won a court order to allow them to serve a default judgment through Facebook. After failing to serve the court documents personally, lawyers tracked down the debtors' Facebook page. They were granted permission in the ACT Supreme Court to serve the default judgment through a Facebook email to the debtors.

Over 100 companies globally have defaulted on their debt this year, affecting $302 billion worth of securities, but that figure could rise as nearly 900 issuers are poised for credit downgrades, Standard & Poor's said on Monday. Of the 108 defaults this year, 86 are from the United States, seven from Europe, five each from Asia and Canada, three from Latin America, and two from Russia. The figure contrasts with 22 defaults in 2007 and 30 in 2006.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) placed two more rural banks under government receivership, a few days after it allowed a state-led deposit insurer to take over seven more lenders, GMA News reported. Two more rural banks under the Legacy Group—the San Pablo City Development Bank in Laguna and Dynamic Bank in Batangas—are now subsumed under the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) after these lenders declared a bank holiday. The state-led deposit insurer will then ensure that both banks’ assets are preserved to pay off its creditors, including its depositors.

Stein Bagger, the chief executive officer of bankrupt Danish computer firm IT Factory A/S, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in what local media are describing as the country’s biggest ever white-collar criminal case, Bloomberg reported. Bagger, who was extradited from the U.S. earlier this week, told a Lyngby city court, north of Copenhagen, he wasn’t sure how much money he made through the fraud, newswire Ritzau said. Boris Frederiksen, a trustee overseeing IT Factory’s bankruptcy proceedings, estimates Bagger earned as much as $45 million through the scam, Berlingske Tidende reported.

Toyota and other Japanese carmakers say the bankruptcy of any of Detroit's Big Three would spell serious trouble for them as well, the Associated Press reported. One major problem is that Japanese carmakers in the U.S. share many of the same parts suppliers. If a Detroit automaker were to collapse, suppliers would likely follow, setting off a chain reaction that could would wreak havoc for Japanese production in the U.S., a vital market.

German reinsurer Global General and Reinsurance Co. Ltd., formerly the sixth largest reinsurance company in the world, has filed for Chapter 15 protection in the U.S., Bankruptcy Law360 reported. The filing indicated liabilities of more than $100 million and assets of more than $100 million. The company has estimated that it has between 50 and 99 creditors. Howard Seif, global chair of Chadbourne & Parke LLP’s bankruptcy and restructuring practice, is commandeering the U.S. proceedings. The U.K.

A Belgian appeals court on Friday froze several major deals made by the former Belgian-Dutch bank Fortis NV in October to ward off bankruptcy, Dutch media reported. Dutch national broadcaster NOS said the Brussels Appeals Court reversed earlier decisions upholding the sale of Fortis' operations in the Netherlands to the Dutch state, and Belgian operations to the Belgian state. The deals were not put to shareholders for approval as required under Dutch and Belgian law for transactions involving major operations, and shareholder groups later sued.