Headlines

As oil sands developer BA Energy Inc. seeks help from an Alberta court Friday to prevent a fire sale of its assets and appease nervous bankers, it joins a growing list of Canadian oil and gas companies fighting for their lives amid the credit crunch, the Calgary Herald reported on a Financial Post story. While so far only smaller players have run into trouble, insolvency experts say the flood of energy companies headed to court will swell if energy prices stay weak.

AIG executives in Europe are adamant they should not have to return their controversial bonuses and some feel that pressure on them to do so may amount to blackmail, according to a company employee and internal emails. AIG Financial Products unit head Gerald Pasciucco told a staff meeting for UK and Paris employees on Monday that he thought a demand for repayments was to a certain extent "blackmail," said a London-based recipient of one of the retention bonuses from the bailed-out insurer.

The actions of Storm Financial founders Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis need to be investigated, according to the judge who ordered the firm to be wound up, The Age reported. Creditors were to meet next week to vote on whether they would liquidate the company or accept a deed of company arrangement (DOCA) proposed by the founding couple. But Federal Court Justice John Logan took the decision out of their hands on Thursday when he agreed to an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) application to have the north Queensland-based firm wound up.

Debt-strapped retailer JJB Sports PLC said Thursday it has fired its Chief Executive for failing to disclose on time the sale of his stake in the company. Christopher Ronnie was fired for gross misconduct after failing to inform the company on time that he had disposed of his 27.5% shareholding in January. Under disclosure and transparency rules, directors must notify their company within four days of any share dealing made for their benefit.

A hearing at Leeds District Registry asking for a textile firm run by a former Pendle businessman to be compulsorily wound up was adjourned until next month after the company said it was going into voluntary administration, The Clitheroe Advertiser and Times reported. A creditor was petitioning for the compulsory winding up of Reed Family Linens, but the High Court hearing came to a standstill when the firm said it had registered for voluntary administration. The hearing was adjourned until April 7th to give Reed Family Linens time to appoint administrators.

Former Waipawa accountant Warren Pickett appeared in the Napier District Court today facing eight charges laid by the Serious Fraud Office alleging fraud, false statements by a promoter and breaches of the Securities Act, The National Business Review reported. Mr Pickett placed his two finance companies, Waipawa Holdings and Waipawa Finance, into liquidation last August before handing himself in to the SFO. The two firms owed about 220 investors some $20 million, of which $12 million represented accrued interest.

The failure last week of Ventracor Ltd., once the “darling” of Australia’s life-sciences industry, may herald more collapses as a global capital drought forces cash-starved companies to find partners or wind down, Bloomberg reported. Almost half the nation’s 130 publicly traded life-sciences companies risk insolvency in the next year, according to AusBiotech Ltd., a Melbourne-based industry group. Capital raised by listed biotechs plummeted to A$183 million ($129 million) in 2008 from A$943 million in 2007, the group has said.

A Federal Court judge in Brisbane will hand down a decision tomorrow that will determine whether failed planning firm Storm Financial is liquidated, ABC News reported. The Townsville-based company was placed in voluntary administration in January and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has applied to wind it up. Creditors are due to vote on Monday on a deed of company arrangement that would return control to directors Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis.

Investors in the failed fund management group Babcock & Brown have experienced a "terrible destruction of value'' in the wake of its collapse, the company's joint administrator said today. David Lombe, who was appointed just over a week ago as administrator, said that his team from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu would seek to get as much back for the company's noteholders as possible following the first creditors' meeting held in Sydney today, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Governments should partly or fully nationalise extremely weak banks suffering under the weight of toxic loans, Francisco Gonzalez, chairman of Spain's second largest bank BBVA said on Monday. "When a bank shows signs of extreme weakness the authorities should take control of it, which implies removing the directors and reducing or eliminating share capital in the institution," Gonzalez said at a conference in Madrid.