Headlines

The German government distanced itself on Monday from any commitment to Opel's future, saying it would wait for the ailing automaker to present a business plan before considering state guarantees. Opel, the German unit of General Motors, needs some €3.3 billion ($4.15 billion) to keep afloat through to the end of 2011, a source at the carmaker told Reuters on Friday.

Global Business System Corp. has become the first Kospi-listed company ordered to go into bankruptcy by the Seoul Central District Court since the global economic crisis, the JoongAng Daily reported. The court said yesterday that the Seoul branch of Netherlands-based ABN Amro Bank filed a bankruptcy petition against GBS Corp. in November 2008 after the bank failed to collect $6 million in bonds from GBS. “GBS Corp.

Potential bids are being drawn up for CanWest Global Communications Corp.'s coveted specialty channels in the event the media company is forced to liquidate assets, The Globe and Mail reported. Sources say investment bankers have approached two Canadian broadcasters, Corus Entertainment Inc. and Astral Media Inc., to formulate a bid for CanWest's stake in specialty assets formerly owned by Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc.

Bankruptcy at Emaar Properties' US unit should help the Dubai developer turn the page on its American foray and face worsening conditions in its home market, analysts said yesterday. The largest listed Arab real estate developer has been forced to make impairments and write-downs of around Dh4 billion since it bought US home builder John Laing Homes for $1.05bn (Dh3.8bn) in June 2006, Emirates Business 24/7 reported.

Beleaguered Swedish car maker Saab Automobile sought legal restructuring Friday to stave off bankruptcy after it was abandoned by its owner General Motors, Saab and GM said. "We submitted a request today" to the Vaenersborg district court in southwestern Sweden, Saab spokeswoman Margareta Hoegstroem told Agence France-Presse, adding that the company expected the court to announce later Friday whether it accepted the request.

Shares of Magna Entertainment Corp plunged nearly 25 percent on Thursday after the racetrack and gaming company said it may not meet its debt obligations following the cancellation of a deal that would have spun it off from its parent, Reuters reported. MI Developments, the real estate arm of auto parts maker Magna International Inc and MEC's controlling stakeholder, said it scrapped the spinoff plan because current global economic conditions likely would have prevented it from arranging new debt financing. That caused MEC, which counts U.S.

World stock markets fell sharply Friday as the selling pressure on Wall Street was expected to continue at the open later amid pessimism about the ability of governments to prevent the deepest global economic downturn in generations, the Associated Press reported. Investors in Asia and Europe found few reasons to wade into the market after the Dow Jones industrial average breached the levels it touched in November, when global equities went into a tailspin as the financial crisis gathered steam.

Japan’s government is considering earmarking public money for companies that take up work-sharing to curb surging joblessness as the world's second-largest economy slides into what authorities are calling Japan's worst recession since World War II, the Associated Press reported. Common in parts of Europe, work-sharing means slashing employees' pay and hours instead of firing people outright. Two or three people might share what previously was one person's job.

General Motors's European brands are near collapse, with Germany's Opel in need of substantially more funding and Saab reported to be asking for $590 million from the Swedish government to help it restructure, Reuters reported. Filing for protection from creditors on Friday, Saab said it would present a reorganisation proposal within three weeks while court filings revealed that it estimated its losses in 2008 and 2009 at around 3 billion Swedish crowns ($340.1 million).

The Canadian government has hit Chrysler Canada with a tax-related C$500 million ($400 million) lien that could complicate negotiations for the automaker as it seeks government aid, the Globe and Mail newspaper said on Thursday. The paper, citing federal court documents, said the Canada Revenue Agency notified Chrysler Canada in 2002 that it owed "substantial increases" in taxes for three years starting in 1996.