Headlines

A federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday night to hear an appeal from a group of lenders seeking to block the sale of Chrysler's assets, a move that could delay the automaker's exit from bankruptcy proceedings, The Washington Post reported. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit accepted the appeal from a coalition of Indiana pension funds that has sought to block the sale of most of Chrysler's assets to a group led by Italian automaker Fiat, according to Chris Conner, spokesman for Indiana State Treasurer's Office. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, Conner said.

Nortel still trades above zero because of short covering, options--and plain old-fashioned hope and greed, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of the reasons investors may still want to trade shares of companies in CCAA protection. Under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, shareholders can keep their shares until the company's reorganization is complete, while in the U.S. proceedings, the shares are vested to a trustee and usually rendered worthless.

A North Sydney technology firm chaired by former federal Liberal Party leader John Hewson appears headed for collapse, having gone into administration, The Australian reported. Pisces Group lodged documents with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, confirming that it had entered voluntary administration on Monday after 21 years of operation. It is understood that the company began notifying its customers that the group had entered administration late yesterday.

Key General Motors Corp. and Magna International Inc. executives will inform German automaker Adam Opel GmbH's employees of details of the planned restructuring, an Opel supervisory board member told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday. Magna Co-Chief Executive Siegfried Wolf and the president of General Motors Corp.'s European unit, Carl-Peter Forster, are set to outline the broad picture of the planned measures, according to supervisory board member Armin Schild. Schild represents labor union IG Metall labor union on Opel's supervisory board.

Grupo Mexico SAB, Mexico's largest mining company, said Tuesday it is offering $2.9 billion in a new reorganization plan to take its U.S. copper unit, Asarco LLC, out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where it has languished since August 2005, The Wall Street Journal reported. Grupo Mexico's fight to regain control of the Tucson, Ariz., company--which is being run by an independent board set up by the bankruptcy court--is part of a long-running saga that has played out across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Grupo Mexico SAB was ordered by a U.S. judge to put into escrow $8.84 billion worth of stock in its Southern Copper Corp. while it appeals a decision it lost in a Texas court, Bloomberg reported. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, ruled yesterday that Grupo’s Americas Mining unit must set aside the stock after losing a lawsuit and being ordered to return 260 million shares of Southern Copper to Asarco LLC along with $1.38 billion in cash.

Problems deepened at Saudi conglomerate Saad Group late on Tuesday after credit agencies slashed ratings to default status or withdrew coverage altogether, saying Saad had ceased to pay creditors, Reuters reported. Saad said it had appointed specialist firm BDO Capital Finance to restructure its obligations and those at its Bahrain-based unit, Awal Bank. "Both the Saad Group and Awal Bank are confident of a successful restructuring," Saad said in a statement.

New figures from both sides of the Tasman confirm that New Zealand exporters will continue to face hard times in their biggest market as the global economic crisis drags Australia into recession, The New Zealand Herald reported. New Zealand's transtasman trade suffered a 20.7 per cent hit in April - led by a halving in the value of crude oil - and the release of Australia's latest national accounts data tomorrow is expected to report a further contraction in gross domestic product for the March quarter.

After a failed bid for General Motors Corp.'s Opel unit, Fiat SpA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne plans to focus his attention on restructuring the Italian car maker's U.S. partner, Chrysler LLC, as it emerges from bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Behind the scenes, however, Fiat is expected to keep hunting for another partner--ideally in Europe--that can give it scale in an industry dominated by bigger rivals and bogged down by an excess of production capacity. Mr.

Oversight of the U.K.'s financial stability should be returned to the Bank of England from the Financial Services Authority to help mend a faulty supervisory structure, a U.K. parliamentary committee said. The government should also consider handing the FSA's day-to-day oversight of banks and other regulated companies to the country's central bank, the House of Lords economic-affairs committee said in a report on banking regulation, The Wall Street Journal reported.