Hong Kong

A tiny default by a Russian aircraft-leasing company is sending ripples through the much larger market for the country's debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The default by Finance Leasing Co. on $250 million of bonds is the first by a Russian state-owned company on foreign debt since the country's 1998 financial meltdown. That is rattling foreign investors, who worry that Russia could allow many more companies to renege on billions of dollars of debt while it grapples with an economic and financial crisis.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong rose to a more than five-year high in February as the recession in the city deepened, government data showed Friday. The government said 1,500 bankruptcy petitions from individuals and non-limited firms were filed during the month, up from 1,266 in January, Dow Jones Newswires reported. February's figure was the highest since October 2003, when 1,648 bankruptcy petitions were filed as Hong Kong was recovering from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome crisis. The data come amid signs of further deterioration in local economic conditions.

Foreign lenders that rushed into China in recent years are watching nervously as a number of companies there teeter on the brink of insolvency. Their worry: The nation's bankruptcy laws may leave them with virtually nothing, The Wall Street Journal reported. Several big Western investors--Citigroup Inc., hedge-fund manager Citadel Investment Group LLC, Credit Suisse Group and CLSA Capital Partners--are seeking to get back between $100 million and $200 million in loans extended to a Chinese steelmaker, according to people familiar with the matter.

Financial Secretary John Tsang predicted Wednesday the Hong Kong economy will contract by 2% to 3% this year, and he pledged to boost government spending to ease the pains of a deepening recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Tsang said in his annual budget address that Hong Kong's government will spend a total 301.6 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$38.66 billion) in the next fiscal year that starts April 1. That figure would be down from estimated spending of HK$317.8 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31. Critics have charged that Mr.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has asked the bankruptcy court to let it retain Jones Day as special counsel to help the former financial services company with issues that have arisen in the Asia-Pacific region related to its Chapter 11 case. In a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Lehman said the law firm would help it in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Australia with matters related to its bankruptcy filing.

Another company headed by Christchurch property developer Dave Henderson is in receivership, The Press reported. Receivers were appointed to Elgin Investments Ltd on December 5, Companies Office records show. The company owns the Sydenham Central Mall (formerly the Spotlight Plaza) in Colombo Street, the key tenant being a Spotlight store. Christchurch property management company Livingstones will continue to manage the mall. Shares in the company are owned by investors in Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, Hong Kong and Australia. The mall has been on the market for at least a year.

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.

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.

China unveiled an economic stimulus program it billed as totaling $586 billion, aiming to bolster domestic demand and help avert a global recession, the Wall Street Journal Asia reported today. Though the two-year package appeared to include some previously announced measures, its size was clearly designed to revive the fading confidence of Chinese businesses and consumers, and impress foreign governments.