Headlines

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King is under pressure to move to phase two of his emergency program to save Britain from deflation by printing more money than the 75 billion pounds ($113 billion) currently planned, Bloomberg reported. King, who meets with his Monetary Policy Committee today, has yet to say whether the bank wants to keep buying assets to fight the recession when his existing fund runs out this month. Officials will probably also vote to keep the benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent, said all but one of the 61 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

One of the south-west's largest blue gum plantation owners, Great Southern, has today gone into a trading halt pending an announcement on its finances, The Standard reported. The Agribusiness group is expected to make an announcement on it managed investment scheme (MIS) sales program and working capital requirements on Monday. In a statement the company said the trading would stay in place until the announcement was made. Great Southern employs about 20 people in the region and has 70,000 hectares of bluegum plantations in the Greater Green Triangle area.

A Victorian olive harvesting company has agreed to buy a $15 million olive crop from the administrators of failed agri-business Timbercorp. After 15 hours of legal argument in the Federal Court, olive harvester Boundary Bend will buy the olives currently on the trees at Boort. Mark Korda, from administrator KordaMentha, says the olive sale is a "good outcome", and a practical solution for all parties. Similar deals may be arranged to pick other crops managed by Timbercorp, including mangoes, almonds and avocados.

A media business associated with one-time Rich Lister Jim Boult has gone into liquidation, leaving contractors and trade creditors out of pocket, The National Business Review reported. GGK Holdings, formerly Armada Publishing, went into liquidation earlier this week. GGK’s sole current shareholder is Watene Investments, an investment vehicle for Roger Pierce, a business associate of the Boults. But Jim and Karen Boult were directors of the company until February this year and also held most of its shares in trust until March, alongside minor shareholders Glenda and Martin Mongan.

Europe’s central banks are $40 billion poorer than they might have been after they followed a British move taken 10 years ago on Thursday to shrink the Bank of England’s gold reserves, analysis by the Financial Times has shown. London’s announcement on May 7 1999 that it would sell a large share of the Bank’s gold reserves in favour of assets offering a return, such as government bonds, was the high water mark of so-called “anti-gold” sentiment among European central banks.

Quebecor World Inc. says it's set to swing to a modest profit in a year's time as it prepares to emerge from bankruptcy protection over the next few weeks, The Globe and Mail reported. The commercial printing giant said in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing yesterday that it is projecting a profit of $7 million (U.S.) for 2010, compared with a loss of $184 million in 2009. Last year, as it worked on its complex restructuring under court protection from U.S. and Canadian creditors, Quebecor World posted a $1.7 billion loss.

A property company which was planning to build a $1 billion development in Brisbane has gone into voluntary administration, ABC News reported. Austcorp Property Group says one of three banks which had committed funds for the Vision Tower has withdrawn its support. In an announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange, the company says it remains optimistic that the project will proceed once a restructure is undertaken. Administrators will complete a detailed review of Austcorp's operations over the next few weeks.

The bankruptcy judge overseeing U.S. Energy Systems Inc.'s Chapter 11 case has signed off on subsidiary GBGH LLC's plan to put into motion the U.K. portion of its restructuring transactions, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York signed off Tuesday on the motion, ruling that GBGH should be allowed to proceed after finding the transactions to be in the best interest of the estate, its creditors and other parties.

Collapsed plantation group Timbercorp's wind-up was likely to be a drawn-out affair, insolvency specialist Mark Korda told creditors yesterday. There were two meetings yesterday: the first of listed entity Timbercorp Group, at which 300 creditors were told there were debts of about $930 million but assets including 120,000ha of land and 153 megalitres of annual water entitlements, The Australian reported. The secured creditors are the banks, headed by ANZ Bank (owed about $500 million), Commonwealth, Westpac and HBOS. The banks are owed the lion's share of the debt--$661 million.

The arcane world of cross-border restructuring, it turns out, is as vulnerable to the vagaries of Canadian outrage over U. S. dominance as the musical content of local radio stations--at least if the growing controversy over the use of crossborder guarantees for U. S. debtor-in-possession lenders is any indication, the Financial Post reported. "It's not uncommon to have a single credit agreement govern DIP financing for related Canadian and U. S. borrowers," says Linc Rogers, an insolvency partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon in Toronto.