Altos Hornos de Mexico SA, the steelmaker known as Ahmsa, said it asked a judge to end its 15-year bankruptcy following an agreement with a majority of creditors that calls for repayment of $1.7 billion. Creditors will be called to a meeting to confirm their acceptance of the deal, which proposes a three-year payback in pesos, Ahmsa said in a statement today to the Mexican stock exchange. That session would pave the way to exit a restructuring case begun in 1999, the company said.

A key gauge of household debt in Canada climbed to a record high in the third quarter as Canadians accumulated debt faster than their incomes grew, illustrating what the central bank has deemed the top risk to the domestic financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ratio of household credit-market debt to personal disposable income rose to 162.60% from a revised 161.45% in the second quarter, Statistics Canada said Monday. That means Canadians owe roughly 1.63 Canadian dollars ($1.41) on every dollar of disposable income.

Mexican homebuilder Urbi has filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The creditors which have so far signed the restructuring plan held some 21.9 billion pesos ($1.55 billion) in debt, equivalent to around 53.3 percent of the total claims on Urbi, the company said in a statement. Urbi, Mexico's third-largest homebuilder in recent years, is following its bigger peers after struggling under heavy debt loads and slumping sales of their cheap, single-unit homes in developments often located far from urban centers.

Three units of PT Bumi Resources, Asia’s most-indebted coal miner, filed for creditor protection in the U.S. after failing to make a semi-annual interest payment, Bloomberg News reported. Bumi Investment Pte Ltd listed assets and debt of as much as $1 billion each in Chapter 15 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Bumi Capital Pte and Enercoal Resources Pte also sought court protection. Companies use Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code to fend off creditor claims in the U.S. while they reorganize their finances elsewhere.

When Canada disbursed billions of dollars in the auto-sector bailout nearly half a decade ago, it did so without reviewing the automakers’ final restructuring plans and with limited research on how the loans would be repaid, a government watchdog says, The Wall Street Journal Canada Real Time blog reported. Canada’s Auditor General, the equivalent of the U.S. General Accountability Office, highlighted the flaws in the government’s approach to providing the funds to General Motors Co.’s Canadian unit and Chrysler Canada in a report Tuesday.

Lawyers representing the provincial government took centre stage at U.S. Steel Canada’s restructuring hearing on Thursday, as the court worked toward figuring out who should gets paid first if the company is sold or goes bankrupt. The province won the right to file future claims against U.S. Steel Canada during its restructuring, while also successfully arguing the court will be allowed to examine the American parent's claim when it comes time to decide who what piece of the proceeds or assets. U.S.

The small Caribbean island of Grenada offers a salutary lesson on the dangers of loading up with debt for governments tempted by easy money, the Financial Times reported. Since defaulting on close to $200m of international bonds in 2013, Grenada has been trying to negotiate a restructuring deal with its creditors. Now, according to sources close to the discussions, a deal may be approaching following meetings between the government and its creditors in Washington last month. But Grenada’s debt woes go far beyond the hundreds of millions it owes in US dollar bonds.

Lawyers representing the provincial government took centre stage at U.S. Steel Canada’s restructuring hearing on Thursday, as the court worked toward figuring out who should gets paid first if the company is sold or goes bankrupt, CBC News reported. The province won the right to file future claims against U.S. Steel Canada during its restructuring, while also successfully arguing the court will be allowed to examine the American parent's claim when it comes time to decide who what piece of the proceeds or assets. U.S.

No one expects Mexico to restructure its debt anytime soon. But if it ever does, so-called vulture investors like Mr. Singer’s Elliott Management will find it much harder to crash the debt restructuring party – as they have done so successfully in Argentina – thanks to tough new provisions written into the contracts of new bond issues for the country, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

On the eve of a multibillion-dollar settlement with six giant banks suspected of manipulating the foreign currency market, regulators in Washington and Britain have encountered a last-second complication: One of the banks may drop out of the deal, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The giant British bank Barclays has yet to commit to settling, according to people briefed on the matter, even as the window of opportunity closes.