Headlines

Nokia Siemens Networks, seeking a bigger foothold in the U.S. market, has offered to buy large pieces of Nortel Networks Corp., including much of its profitable carrier networks unit and a research unit developing a next-generation wireless technology, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, an auction of Nortel's enterprise, or business telecom, unit last week attracted bids from competitors Avaya Inc. and Siemens Enterprise Communications, according to others. Nokia Siemens, a joint venture between Nokia Corp.

The Russian factory known as Avtovaz is one of the least efficient automobile factories anywhere in the world--each worker produces, on average, eight cars a year, compared with 36 cars a year at General Motors’ assembly line in Bowling Green, Ky., for example. Yet the government is giving Avtovaz billions of dollars in aid, no strings attached, The New York Times reported. “The key issue is too much government protection,” Yegor T. Gaidar, a former prime minister, said.

Siberian Services Co., the oil- drilling company whose clients include OAO Rosneft, defaulted on $100 million of bonds, the first Russian borrower to fail to repay its foreign debt this year, according to three investors. Siberian Services didn’t redeem the 13.75 percent notes due 2010 by an April 3 deadline after bond holders exercised a so- called put option, according to the investors, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. Creditors formed a committee to push for full repayment of the debt, which could force the company into bankruptcy, they said.

Ireland’s government, reeling from the loss of its top credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, may increase taxes and cut spending in an emergency budget today aimed at stemming the biggest deficit among euro-area nations, Bloomberg reported. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who is making his second budget speech in six months, says the country faces a “very grave national crisis” as the deficit heads for 13 percent of gross domestic product, four times the European Union limit. He may also announce plans to remove toxic property loans from the nation’s biggest banks.

Invista Real Estate, the UK's largest listed property fund manager, is poised to buy the Asian property business of Babcock & Brown, the Australian investment house that was placed into voluntary administration last month, the Financial Times reported. Invista, which is majority owned by HBOS, is to acquire Babcock & Brown's fund management platform in the region, including offices in Hong Kong and Singapore and more than 20 staff.

Magnesium die caster Trimag LP has filed for bankruptcy protection and will shut down its Boisbriand, Quebec, operations by June 27, a union official said. The bankruptcy filing comes after the company lost the business of its main customer, General Motors Corp. The die caster sought protection under Canada's Companies Creditors' Arrangement Act (CCAA), which is roughly equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, on Friday, according to Bruno Cyr, vice president of the local chapter of the United Steelworkers union, American Metal Market reported.

Fourteen global corporate bond issuers defaulted last week, the largest weekly tally so far this year, Standard and Poor's said in a report. This raised the total of corporate issuers that have defaulted in 2009 to 68, more than triple the 19 defaults seen at the same time last year, the report said. "By region, the U.S. continued its dominance in default count, adding nine issuers this (last) week to its roster of 45 issuers so far this year," said Diane Vazza, managing director of research for S&P. Europe followed, adding three defaults to its tally of six defaulted issuers for 2009.

The trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC said he needs to hire attorneys in Luxembourg to help recover customer assets in that country, Bloomberg reported. Irving Picard, the lawyer appointed by the Securities Investor Protection Corp. to unwind the now-defunct firm of convicted fraud mastermind Bernard Madoff, is responsible for conducting a broad investigation of Madoff’s assets and actions. Picard has said he’s already recovered about $1 billion to repay Madoff clients. In court papers filed yesterday in U.S.

Polish corporate bankruptcies rose by 25 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2009 to 126, a sharp reversal in a positive downward trend observed from 2002, Coface Poland said in a report on Monday. In 2008 the number of bankruptcies declined by 7 percent year-on-year, said the report, quoted by Polish news agency PAP. "In 2009 bankruptcy statistics, firms are appearing whose bankruptcy was directly influenced by crisis-related factors," the report said, identifying a dramatic decline in the number of orders as a primary bankruptcy factor.

Europe’s recession deepened more than estimated in the fourth quarter after companies scaled back production and consumer spending declined. Gross domestic product in the euro region declined 1.6 percent from the previous three months, the most in at least 13 years, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today, revising down a March 5 estimate of a 1.5 percent contraction. Investment plunged 4 percent and household spending fell 0.3 percent. From a year earlier, GDP shrank 1.5 percent, the only full-year drop on record.