Headlines

Masonite International Inc, a Canadian doormaker owned by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, said it reached an agreement in principle with committees representing its secured lenders and bondholders on terms of a restructuring plan, Reuters reported. The plan aims to reduce the company's debt from $2.2 billion today to about $300 million. It will also reduce the company's annual cash interest expense by $145 million, Masonite said in a statement.

Nortel Networks Corp., the phone equipment maker that filed for bankruptcy protection in January, posted a wider fourth-quarter net loss after writing down the value of some of its assets, Bloomberg reported. The loss expanded to $2.14 billion, or $4.28 a share, from $844 million, or $1.70, a year earlier, the Toronto-based company said today in a statement. Sales dropped 15 percent to $2.72 billion.

Bankrupt Canadian technology company Nortel Networks Corp. has asked a federal bankruptcy court to approve bidding procedures to auction off part of its product portfolio, noting that it has already arranged a stalking horse agreement with Radware Ltd. to purchase the business segment for CA$17.7 million (US$14 million), Bankruptcy Las360 reported. Ernst & Young Inc., as monitor and foreign representative for Nortel, filed the motion asking the U.S.

European Union leaders, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejected a call by Hungary for a sweeping bailout of Eastern Europe, as the bloc struggled to find consensus on an approach to the spiraling financial crisis at a summit Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The global recession has greatly strained the bonds holding together the 27 nations that now make up the European Union, formed in the wake of World War II, and poses the most significant challenge in decades to its ideals of solidarity and common interest. Ms.

Ukraine, once considered a worldwide symbol of an emerging, free-market democracy that had cast off authoritarianism, is teetering, The New York Times reported. And its predicament poses a real threat for other European economies and former Soviet republics. The sudden, violent protests that have erupted elsewhere in Eastern Europe seem imminent here now, too. World leaders are increasingly worried about the discontent and the financial crisis in Ukraine, which has 46 million people and a highly strategic location.

A New York private-equity group, KPS Capital Partners LP, agreed to buy the Irish and U.K. operations of Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the historic ceramics-and-crystal maker that was placed in a form of bankruptcy in January, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal was announced by accounting firm Deloitte LLP, which has been trying to sell the company since it was placed in administration Jan. 5 after years of heavy losses under its former chairman and major shareholder, Irish businessman Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

Hertie, a German department-store chain, moved into a new phase of protection from creditors Monday, with a court opening official insolvency proceedings on its debts, Monsters and Critics reported. The nationwide retail chain, owned by British private-equity investors, had been struggling even before the recession. Hertie has said it will try to keep 54 branches functioning after the closure of 19 loss-making stores. It applied in July last year for court protection. A court spokeswoman said the insolvency proceedings phase was being conducted by a court in Essen.

Asia Aluminum Holdings Ltd. will show bondholders tomorrow how much they are likely to get back if they fail to accept a restructuring proposal and push the company into bankruptcy, according to Chairman Kwong Wui Chun, Bloomberg reported. “I want to give investors a picture of the situation” by sharing a liquidation analysis prepared by a consulting firm, Kwong said in an interview in Hong Kong, without naming the company. Kwong on Feb.

Shares in HSBC tumbled by almost a quarter this morning after the bank launched the biggest shareholder cash call in UK corporate history and finally admitted that diving into the America's subprime market had been a serious mistake, the Guardian reported. In another sign of the turmoil sweeping the banking sector, HSBC reported this morning that its profits had dropped by two thirds and it was raising $17.7 billion (£12.5 billion) in a rights issue.

The global financial crisis is the worst economic downturn in living memory and some new European Union members have been hit particularly hard, EU officials said on Monday. The EU is doing a lot to help those affected, and also will focus on fighting any protectionist measures that would hurt the bloc, which has a key share on the world's trade flows, they said.