Headlines

South Korea's financial watchdog said Wednesday it would set up a task force to advise troubled companies on corporate restructuring to help them ride out the credit crunch, Agence France-Presse reported today. The team of 43 experts will be formed Friday and work for one year, the Financial Services Commission said. South Korea has announced a series of steps to lessen the effect of the global slowdown, including $16 billion in loans to ease a dollar shortage for firms importing raw materials and exporting goods.

Polish oil refiner Lotos denied Monday it is facing bankruptcy as it sought to calm investors unnerved by a UniCredit analyst report which said the company is likely to collapse, the Associated Press reported. The Polish news agency PAP said the UniCredit report warned that Lotos has only about a 50 percent chance of surviving in its current form. UniCredit also reportedly slashed its target price for Lotos to zero from 25 zlotys ($8.08).

A debt auditor said Ecuador would find challenging its foreign debt in U.S. courts difficult because the country signed away its legal rights in bond agreements over a 20-year period, Bloomberg reported. Halting debt payments without the support of a court decision would be a “catastrophe” for the nation, said Alejandro Olmos, a member of a committee appointed by President Rafael Correa to review the debt. Bondholders could seize Ecuador’s assets, including those of state-owned oil company PetroEcuador, he said. Ecuador on Nov.

Insolvency law will be reformed to address a serious concern over the safety of money held with London investment banks which has sprung up in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The government will take a special power in the banking bill that is going through parliament to bolster the protection for client money and assets held in investment companies. A review of the insolvency regime for investment banks will be conducted by next summer, ahead of a full formal consultation on the draft legislation.

BHP Billiton Ltd. on Tuesday withdrew its $68 billion hostile takeover offer for Rio Tinto Ltd., saying a deepening global economic crisis had made the deal too risky for its shareholders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The death of the biggest proposed mining takeover offer on record comes as the global credit crisis increases the cost and reduces the availability of capital, slowing developed economies and reducing their need for raw commodities.

Kazakhstan has unveiled a $21 billion (€16.3 billion) rescue package to help soften the impact of the global financial crisis on the economy and buoy growth even as world oil prices fall, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The package, equivalent to 20 percent of the oil-rich central Asian country’s GDP, includes emergency funding for the banking, property and agricultural sectors and small- and medium-sized businesses.

Hundreds of companies operating in docks will be tipped into insolvency next year despite the chancellor’s decision to give them more time to pay backdated rates bills, the Financial Times reported Monday. Alistair Darling said that port companies such as cargo handlers and repair companies could pay bills in interest-free instalments over eight years. A recent change in the law requires companies operating in ports to pay rates direct to local authorities, rather than through rents to the port authority.

Canada-based mining corporation NovaGold shares plummeted 67 per cent yesterday to 72 cents after the company revealed it is running out of cash and won't be able to repay a $20-million bridge loan due in late December unless it can sell assets or raise funds by selling shares on the stock market, the Globe and Mail reported today. NovaGold is the latest in a slew of mining firms that are grappling with the prospect of insolvency as metal prices have crashed, demand for new projects has nosedived and access to capital has all but dried up.

A C$32 billion ($26 billion) plan to swap frozen commercial paper in Canada for longer-term notes won’t be done by the end of November, missing a deadline set by an investors’ committee overseeing the restructuring, Bloomberg reported yesterday. The group is required to post agreements related to the swap on the Internet no later than seven days before the closing, according to a June court order. No documents have been posted on the Web site of Ernst & Young Inc., the accounting firm appointed to monitor the process.

A Cromwell winery owes about $6 million to secured creditors and an estimated $1.2 million to unsecured creditors as receivers begin preparing the business for sale, the Otago Daily Times reported today. WHK Cook Adam Ward Wilson receivers have released their first report on Central Otago Vintners, which was placed in receivership on September 19. The report showed Southland Finance, which holds the first mortgage, was owed $4,736,280 and second mortgage holder Secured Lending Ltd $1,331,959.