Satellite operator Intelsat SA said late on Wednesday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the latest casualty of severe business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The company listed assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Intelsat also said it had received $1 billion in debtor-in-possession financing.
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ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, said it would cut European production for the second time in a month as weak demand and high quantities of imports continued to take their toll, the Financial Times reported. The company announced on Wednesday that it would lower output at its plants in Dunkirk, France, and Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany. It will also extend planned stoppages at its facilities in Bremen, Germany, and Asturias, Spain.
Creditors of India’s bankrupt Essar Steel have accepted an offer from ArcelorMittal, the global steel giant said on Friday, in a major step towards its efforts to establish a meaningful presence in India, the Financial Times reported. The announcement came a day after Essar’s founding Ruia family offered to pay off the company’s entire outstanding debt of Rs543bn ($7.4bn), in a last-ditch attempt to pull the company out of the insolvency proceedings and halt the sale by creditors.
The committee of creditors tasked with the resolution process of Essar Steel Ltd. has picked ArcelorMittal as H1 Resolution Applicant, or preferred bidder, for the insolvent asset, Bloomberg Quint reported. The final bid price will be negotiated over the weeks to come, the Luxembourg-based company said in a statement. This comes two weeks after the Supreme Court directed both Numetal Mauritius and ArcelorMittal to pay up past debts to be eligible to bid for insolvent Essar Steel Ltd. Of the two, only one met the Supreme Court directive—ArcelorMittal.
Brussels’ attacks on corporate tax deals risks undermining business certainty in Europe, according to one of the states accused of handing out illegal tax benefits, the Financial Times reported. Pierre Gramegna, finance minister of Luxembourg, said the European Commission’s decision to use the state aid rules to challenge corporate tax agreements “raises so many issues about predictability and certainty”.
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A Galway-based company is being sued by a Luxembourg investor over the alleged effective cancellation of a €2 million loan note when it was converted into shares before the firm was sold off, the Irish Times reported. In Commercial Court proceedings, it is claimed Éire Composites, which designs and manufactures lightweight high-performance materials for the aerospace, marine and motor sectors, was bought by businessman Thomas Flanagan last November despite objections by Carlo Tassara Assets Management Ltd (CTAM), with registered offices in Luxembourg.
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A Luxembourg court on Wednesday confirmed that a holding company of Portugal's Espirito Santo family could not receive bankruptcy protection, Reuters reported. Rioforte Investments, whose assets include many of the family's holdings in real estate, hotels and plantations, had appealed against an earlier decision by a Luxembourg court to not award it protection from creditors. This appeal was struck down by judges on Wednesday, a spokesman for the court said in an emailed statement, without elaborating.
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Leyne, Strauss-Kahn & Partners, the financial-services firm that was headed by former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and late financier Thierry Leyne, said on Wednesday that it is insolvent, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Luxembourg-based firm said in a short statement that, after the “tragic death” of Mr.
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The list of multinational businesses accused of using European jurisdictions to cut their tax bills grew much longer on Wednesday when a group of investigative reporters published findings accusing more than 300 companies, including PepsiCo, Ikea and FedEx, of benefiting from preferential deals with the government of Luxembourg. The findings, by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, are based on a trove of leaked documents that included 548 so-called comfort letters that the group said Luxembourg had provided to corporations seeking favorable tax treatment.
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The Espírito Santo Financial Group, which at one point held about 25 percent of the bailed-out Portuguese lender Banco Espírito Santo, said on Thursday that it would file for bankruptcy after it was denied creditor protection by a Luxembourg court last week, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Espírito Santo Financial is part of a complex web of companies controlled by the Espírito Santo family.
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