Headlines

Forget Fiat SpA's planned alliance with Chrysler LLC for the moment. If the Italian industrial group is going to pay off debt coming due this year, it will need a banker, not a partner, Reuters reported. The Italian industrial group has 3.3 billion euros of maturing debt and it needs a new line of credit to pay for it. It had a line of 2 billion euros, but used that up last year to help out CNH , its U.S. tractor and combine unit. A new line of credit is crucial if Fiat is to avoid having to resort to a capital increase, something to which its shareholders would surely be loathe to subscribe.

Wholesaler H. E. Richards has been placed into receivership, iomtoday.com reported. KPMG has been appointed as the receiver. H.E. Richards of Hills Meadow Industrial Estate, Douglas, employs a total of 28 staff, full and part time. KPMG is following up expressions of interest in the firm. KPMG's Mike Fayle said staff were sent home, but had not been formally laid off.

IT recruitment firm Agility Group has gone into receivership, leaving four staff out of work, The National Business Review reported. NBR understands that none of the contractors, who work for the company’s two offices, have received payment since the end of December. Tim Downes, who works for receivers Grant Thornton, says he will know more about the financial situation of the company by Friday. Both Agility Group and Agility Group (Wellington) are in receivership.

Finding that issues of fact exist as to the relationship between Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its international affiliates, a federal judge has rejected the accounting firm's request for dismissal from the ongoing securities fraud class action suit against Parmalat SpA and its financial and accounting advisers, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday signed an order denying DTT, Deloitte & Touche (US) and DTT CEO James Copeland's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

German unemployment rose almost twice as much as forecast in January as an economic slump sparked by the global financial crisis spread to industries from cars to software, Bloomberg reported. The number of people out of work rose by 56,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 3.27 million, the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency said today. Economists forecast an increase of 30,000, according to the median of 33 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The adjusted jobless rate rose to 7.8 percent from 7.7 percent. In unadjusted terms, the number of jobless increased by 387,000.

Hundreds of thousands of French workers staged a nationwide strike on Thursday to try to force President Nicolas Sarkozy and business leaders to do more to protect jobs and wages during the economic crisis, Reuters reported. The strike, in a country with a strong protest culture, aimed to highlight fears over growing unemployment, discontent over Sarkozy's reluctance to help consumers and resentment toward bankers blamed for the economic slump.

Former employees of bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. have called on the troubled telecommunications company to restore promised severances it suspended after filing for Chapter 11 protection earlier this month, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. In a memo sent to Nortel Chief Executive Mike Zafirovski and other officers, the workers urged the Canadian company to show good faith and reverse its decision to deny the payouts.

According to a press release on its corporate site, Atlas Shipping A/S filed a petition for bankruptcy with the Bankruptcy Division of the Maritime and Commercial Court in Copenhagen. Simultaneously with the bankruptcy order in respect of Atlas Shipping A/S, bankruptcy orders were issued in respect of Atlas Bulk Shipping A/S and Atlas Shipping Holding A/S. The Atlas Shipping Group has been operating as an international contractor of tonnage and provider of transport solutions in the dry bulk sector with tonnages ranging from 25,000 to 80,000 DWT.

The British government and car makers said on Wednesday they were urgently trying to find ways to work around a rule that stops car financing companies getting direct access to credit from the Bank of England, Reuters reported. The move came as the two sides discussed the government's £2.3 billion ($3.29 billion) package of loan guarantees, designed to rekindle demand as the financial crisis hammers sales in one of Britain's key manufacturing sectors.

Ssangyong Motor, which practically ground to a halt on January 9 when it filed for court receivership, will resume operations on February 2, The Chosun Ilbo reported. Judges from the Seoul Central District Court will inspect the automaker's only plant for finished cars on Thursday to determine whether to grant receivership to the automaker sometime in the first week of February. Ssangyong suspended operations after filing for court receivership because some subcontractors refused to supply parts since they had not been paid for goods already delivered when the carmaker hit the skids.