Hong Kong

American International Group Inc. is in talks to sell a Hong Kong life insurance division to Prudential Plc for more than $35 billion, marking AIG’s largest asset sale since U.S. taxpayers bailed out the company in 2008, people briefed on the matter said, Bloomberg reported. AIG and Prudential aim to reach an agreement to sell American International Assurance Co. in coming days, although the talks could always collapse, the people said, declining to be identified because the matter is private.

Strong results in a Hong Kong government land auction are the latest sign that the city's real-estate market is surging higher after a brief lull, as government officials here and elsewhere in the region grapple with how to cool off overheating property prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday, blue-chip developer Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. agreed to pay 3.37 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$434 million) bid for a 130,000-square-foot site in the suburbs of Hong Kong.

Russian aluminum giant UC Rusal is "very comfortable" with its debt levels and confident about meeting its debt-restructuring obligations, the company's deputy chief executive said. The executive, Artem Volynets, also said the company has no intention to sell off its 25% stake in OAO Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel company by production, The Wall Street Journal reported. Rusal, run by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, is raising as much as US$2.59 billion through a share sale in Hong Kong marketed to professional and other select investors.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson Monday said he expects to restart construction on the casino operator's delayed resort projects in Macau in about five months, with the first two phases of the project to be completed by the end of 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported. Construction of the project was halted in November last year due to a lack of funding during the credit crunch. The new target underscores Sands' renewed ambitions in Macau, the world's biggest casino growth market and the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Nakheel PJSC creditors may win the right to seize a strip of barren waterfront land the size of Manhattan if the company defaults on the $3.5 billion bond backing the development, Bloomberg reported. Investors will be able to seek foreclosure on the property’s mortgages should the Dubai World unit fail to repay the loan, according to the bond’s prospectus. The debt is due on Dec. 14, after which Nakheel has two weeks to remedy a default. The property forms part of the Dubai Waterfront project, where Nakheel plans to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong Island.

Kangaroo Island Abalone has received a State Government grant of $270,000 to upgrade electricity infrastructure at its east farm, The KI Islander reported. The farm has been run solely on diesel generated power since 2005 and general manager Justin Harman said the new infrastructure could halve the company’s annual diesel fuel bill for that farm. The company spends about $250,000 a year on diesel. The innovative new system will connect the farm to the main electricity grid but have the capacity to disconnect it when the load reaches network limit on Kangaroo Island.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong continued to surge in September, rising 31 percent from a year earlier, despite an improving economic environment, government data showed on Friday. Bankruptcy petitions totalled 1,142 in September, up from 873 a year earlier, and increased from August, when 1,099 petitions were filed, although monthly figures are not seasonally adjusted.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong rose by 33 percent in August from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, as companies continued to grapple with weak business conditions, Reuters reported. However, petitions fell from the previous month for a third straight month. Bankruptcy petitions totalled 1,099 in August month, up from 824 a year earlier but down 25 percent from 1,475 petitions in July, although monthly figures are not seasonally adjusted. The annual pace of increase was slightly slower than in July when petitions rose 36 percent from a year earlier.

The Chinese Ministry of Finance said Tuesday that it would issue 6 billion yuan worth of government bonds in Hong Kong, a major step to internationalize its currency at a time of concern about the dollar, The New York Times reported. The yuan bond issue, worth about $879 million, will “promote the yuan in neighboring countries,” the Finance Ministry said on its Web site, and "improve the yuan’s international status.” “The first step toward internationalization is regionalization,” Shi Lei, a foreign currency analyst at Bank of China in Beijing, said in an interview.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong surged 36 percent in July from the same month a year ago, but the jump was lower than an 89 percent year-on-year rise in June as the economy picked up, government data showed on Friday. The territory recorded 1,475 bankruptcy petitions last month, down 9 percent from 1,619 in June and compared to 1,081 in July 2008, Reuters reported. Read more.