Shares of Muhibbah Engineering plunged 20% or 38 sen yesterday on news that Asia Petroleum Hub (APH), a big client that owes money, was in receivership, The Star reported. The stock closed at RM1.52 with 74.35 million shares traded. CIMB Research on its report yesterday said the receivership status for the APH project as reported by a foreign newspaper on Wednesday was a negative surprise. APH had been put under receivership mainly because it could not come up with other investors to help fund the development and repay its debt.

Indonesia's troubled budget-carrier PT Mandala Airlines will temporarily cease operations Thursday, while it plans to restructure its debt and seek strategic investors, the company said Wednesday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. "We will file a debt restructuring request to the Commercial Court tomorrow [Thursday]. This is the best step to safeguard Mandala's future," the airline's President Director Diono Nurjadin told a news conference. "We will cease operations temporarily so we can focus on debt restructuring and invite several potential investors," Nurjadin added.

Indonesia said that it will tighten rules on banks’ foreign-exchange holdings and overseas borrowing to cope with capital inflows that have pushed up inflation and strengthened the rupiah this year, Bloomberg News reported today. Bank Indonesia will also reintroduce a 30 percent cap on lenders’ short-term overseas borrowing to minimize the risk of sudden capital outflows, it said yesterday. Banks must set aside 5 percent of their total foreign-exchange holdings as reserves as of March 2011, from 1 percent currently, Deputy Governor Budi Mulya said yesterday.

PT Bakrie & Brothers, one of Indonesia's largest conglomerates with interests in mining, energy and telecoms, is emerging from a $1.3 billion debt restructuring in control of its major companies. Last year, Bakrie & Brothers' financial position looked untenable. It racked up huge debts, in return pledging to lenders its shares in related companies as collateral. When share prices in its companies unexpectedly collapsed during the global subprime crisis, Bakrie & Brothers was unable to top up its collateral and was forced into debt talks.

Leather supplier CV Cisarua has revoked its bankruptcy litigation against local manufacturer of Adidas shoes PT Prima Inreksa Industries (PII) after reaching an amicable settlement on the latter’s outstanding debt, The Jakarta Post reported. In its press statement Tuesday, the lawyer for Cisarua, Suyud Margono, said PII had paid its US$163,046 debt to Cisarua after reaching a peaceful settlement as a result of mediation.

According to a recent study conducted by Asian Banker Research, Malaysia is listed fourth in the Asia Pacific region's most creditor-friendly bankruptcy regimes where creditors can expect to recover more than 80 cents in the dollar of assets they are owed, the Malaysian national news agency reported. The findings of the study released today said Singapore and Japan were Asia Pacific region's most creditor-friendly bankruptcy regimes where creditors could expect to recover more than 90 cents in the dollar. Taiwan came third with a similar rate of recovery with Malaysia.

For more than two centuries, Waterford crystal and Wedgwood china have been symbols of Irish and British craftsmanship. Now, their future may lie in Asia. Drowning in red ink, the storied brands, which merged in 1986, have moved most ceramics production to Indonesia to cut costs and now plan the same fate for crystal manufacturing. Their headquarters may soon follow. Short of funds for operations and loan payments, Waterford Wedgwood PLC is in advanced talks to sell a controlling stake to a U.S.

Central banks world-wide delivered sweeping interest rate cuts Thursday, even as the continuing turmoil in credit markets means cuts in rates are losing their power to curtail an accelerating global slowdown, The Wall Street Journal reported. Major European central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and Sweden's Riksbank joined the central banks of New Zealand and Indonesia in making deep rate cuts. The goal: to stave off deep and painful slowdowns in the wake of financial market turmoil that has squeezed lending globally.