Headlines

Hong Kong lawmakers slammed HSBC for helping to sell Lehman Brothers bonds in the Chinese territory, questioning if Europe's largest bank should have done more to protect local investors from products that may be worthless in the aftermath of the Wall Street firm's collapse, the Associated Press reported. More than 40,000 Hong Kongers bought Lehman-backed investment products through banks, with the total outstanding value of the products estimated at HK$20.2 billion ($2.6 billion), according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which is the territory's de facto central bank.

Twice in the last three decades, Mexico has demonstrated that one country’s profligacy and mismanagement can spell economic catastrophe beyond its borders. In 1982, the country defaulted on its foreign debt and set off a Latin American debt crisis that led to a decade of anemic growth across the region. In 1994, the peso collapsed and halted capital flows to emerging markets around the world, until the Clinton administration arranged a $50 billion Mexican bailout.

Creditors of Monier Group, one of Britain's biggest roofing materials suppliers, are calling in advisers to oversee a restructuring of the company, The Daily Telegraph reported. Monier, which has been controlled by the private equity investor PAI Partners since March last year, is exposed to the house-building slump because it is among the largest suppliers to the industry through its Redland subsidiary. The company's major creditors have now asked some of the City's leading corporate restructuring teams to pitch for a mandate to advise them.

Twenty-two Chinese dairy firms will pay $160 million into a compensation fund for families of babies that died or fell ill after drinking tainted milk, Agence France-Presse reported. At least six babies in China died this year and another 294,000 fell ill after drinking milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine, which is normally used to make plastic. According to the China Business News, the new fund will come into effect from January and pay for medical treatment and operations for diseases caused by the tainted milk.

Little Bird, a Dublin film company whose credits include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Into the West and Ordinary Decent Criminal, has gone into receivership after failing to raise funds, The Sunday Business Post reported. Kieran Wallace, an accountant with KPMG in Dublin, has been installed as receiver of Little Bird Holdings. The group consists of 32 companies in five countries, many of which are continuing to trade.

British children's clothing retailer Adams Childrenswear Ltd. is on the brink of a form of bankruptcy protection, a spokeswoman for the 75-year-old company said Monday, which would make Adams the latest well-known British retailer to fall victim to the economic downturn. The spokeswoman said the central England-based kids clothing retailer had applied to go into administration on Wednesday and was expected to be placed in the hands of administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers on Monday.

U.S. car parts maker Delphi Corp. has suspended work at a factory in Suzhou due to shrinking demand amid the global economic slump, a media report and a staff member said Monday. The factory west of Shanghai in the city of Suzhou makes compressors for General Motors Corp. "Unfortunately our only customer in 2009 is GMNA, and this has placed the Suzhou compressor plant in a very dangerous position," the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post quoted a Delphi internal document as saying.

About 200 Woolworths stores in Britain have shut their doors for good, the Associated Press reported. The stores that closed Saturday represent about a quarter of the company's shops. The rest of the stores are to close within about a week unless a last-minute buyer is found for the failed retailer. It filed for a form of bankruptcy protection last month. About 27,000 people are expected to lose their jobs. The British retail company has outlasted its original U.S. parent, which closed its final Woolworths stores in 1997.

InterChem Pharma Ltd, the Moshi-based pharmaceutical firm owned by media mogul Benjamin Mengi, has been placed under receivership over a large debt accrued from Barclays Bank Tanzania Ltd., The East African reported. The firm, which three years ago acquired a $6 million loan for setting up an anti-retroviral (ARV) drug manufacturing plant in Tanzania, will go under the hammer next year.

Receivers of Nathans Finance say they have identified potential claims that can be made against various parties associated with Nathans and its parent VTL, The National Business Review reported. In an update to investors, the receivers said legal action on those claims was to start soon. The update was released on Christmas Eve, the day after the Securities Commission said it had laid charges against directors of Nathans, alleging they misled investors by making false statements in company prospectuses.