Headlines

Administrators are working to find new contractors to finish 18 half-built houses after they were appointed to troubled Australian company Miller Homes, The Courier Mail reported. The Sunshine Coast builder specialises in houses costing about A$220,000-$280,000 but is now in voluntary administration. Suppliers and subcontractors are set to feel the brunt of its collapse. A spokesman for administrator Gavin Morton of PKF Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors said there was about $2 million owed to about 70 unsecured creditors, mainly subbies and suppliers.

Group of 20 leaders need to give regulators oversight of unregulated markets and products, such as credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations, to prevent future systemic crises, according to Jean-Pierre Jouyet, head of the French market watchdog AMF and head of an international task force on unregulated markets. "The crisis doesn't arise from the markets but from the lack of organization of some of them," Mr. Jouyet said in an interview Tuesday. "We need to redraw the perimeter of regulation." Financial regulators are looking to the G-20 for guidelines to act, with U.S.

The liquidator at the helm of Lombard’s Tasman Mortgages is waiting to meet lawyers for Blue Chip investors before he decides whether to permit their class action to proceed, The National Business Review reported. Waterstone Insolvency liquidator Steven Khov says he knows of at least two class actions taken by Blue Chip investors that Tasman has been roped into as secondary parties. Waterstone has the power to make a call on whether the cases can proceed against Tasman, although the investors can also seek permission to continue from the courts.

Spain's government plans to set up a bank restructuring fund to inject capital or liquidity into small and medium-sized savings banks facing problems, Spanish media reported on Thursday. The fund would form part of a bank intervention plan Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced on Wednesday. The publicly run recapitalization fund would buy preferential shares in banks or provide loan guarantees to institutions running short of liquidity, newspaper El Pais reported.

The hard truths began to emerge yesterday as word spread about the demise of Australian recruitment group Extreme Workforce and the reality behind its end. Contradicting the sign the company put on the door of its Mackay office, Extreme did not enter into “voluntary administration” but was forced into liquidation by a court order.

Honda Motor Co. said it will cut North American production further, reduce pay of its salaried employees in North America, and for the first time, force its hourly workers to take unpaid leave, as vehicle sales continue to plunge, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company will reduce output by 62,000 units over three months starting May 1, according to a Honda spokesman. Honda reduced cut production in North America by 204,000 units, bringing its unofficial total output 1.25 million in the fiscal year ending today.

Dutch hotel operator Golden Tulip Hospitality Group said on Tuesday it was going into voluntary receivership and discussing a possible merger with Apollo Hotels & Resorts, Reuters reported. Golden Tulip, which owns 60 hotels directly with a further 720 franchised or affiliated across more than 50 countries, said declining occupancy rates and the cost of investing in new hotels had led to losses. A spokesman for the group said it had filed for suspension of payments as a form of protection from creditors, and an interim receiver would be appointed by a court.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be losing valuable time that General Motors Corp.’s Opel business doesn’t have as she holds out against taking a stake in the unit. Merkel says U.S. President Barack Obama’s rejection of GM’s recovery plan gives European leaders a 60-day breathing space to help save Germany-based Opel. Unions and analysts say governments need to take control of the division now or risk it falling victim to a restructuring focused on the U.S. business.

Troubled retailer Comercial Mexicana is due to file a third restructuring plan this week in a fresh bid to keep creditors at bay as talks to restore its financial health drag on. A source close to the negotiations told Reuters on Tuesday that the company, known as Comerci, and its creditors are getting closer to finding a way to restructure its heavy debt load. Comerci defaulted in October after massive derivatives losses sent its debt soaring above $2 billion.

How does Air Canada avoid CCAA? the Globe and Mail asks in an editorial that explores the replacement of president and CEO Montie Brewer with former Air Canada executive Calin Rovinescu. The airline says it can draw more equity out of its fleet by refinancing the planes. There are in fact new agreements in place to do just that. There's also talk of the government changing the pension rules and giving companies more breathing room. Most airline watchers seem to think that these and other factors mean Air Canada won't ask a judge for creditor protection. Don't believe it.