North America

Presenting a plan to return UBS to profitability, the chief executive of the battered Swiss bank said Tuesday that he expects the company to be earning nearly $15 billion a year no later than 2014, The New York Times reported. Switzerland’s largest bank plans to reach pretax profit of 15 billion Swiss francs, or $14.9 billion, and a return on equity — a measure of profitability — of 15 percent to 20 percent sometime between 2012 and 2014, it said in a statement ahead of a presentation to investors Tuesday.

A Saad Group subsidiary says it is unable to make payments on a US$650 million (Dh2.38 billion) Islamic bond maturing in 2012, The National reported. Saad Trading, Contracting and Financial Services, part of the struggling family-owned conglomerate based in Saudi Arabia, said yesterday it was “impossible for the issuer to perform its payment obligations under the sukuk”. It made the disclosure in a statement to the Bahrain Stock Exchange, where the Golden Belt 1 sukuk is listed.

A Texas judge has issued final approval of Grupo Mexico SAB's plan to regain control of copper miner Asarco LLC, ending a lengthy takeover battle with rival suitor Sterlite Industries, The Associated Press reported. The ruling will return control of Asarco to Americas Mining Corp., a Grupo Mexico subsidiary. The deal is expected to close by mid-December. Under the plan, Grupo Mexico will give $2.2 billion to Asarco to be distributed to creditors together with an estimated $1.4 billion in cash held by Asarco.

Wen Jiabao, China's premier, has pledged $10 billion in new low-cost loans to Africa over the next three years and has defended his country's engagement on the continent against accusations that it is "plundering" the region's oil and minerals, The Washington Post reported. Wen made the pledge Sunday at a China-Africa summit here, at which he also urged the United States to keep its deficit to an "appropriate size" to ensure the "basic stability" of the dollar. The loan pledge for Africa was double a $5 billion commitment made in 2006.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner clashed over potential taxes on bank transactions at a weekend meeting here of finance policy makers from the Group of 20 leading economies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K.'s Mr. Brown surprised many attendees by throwing his weight behind the idea of levying a tax on financial transactions and using those funds to pay for future bank bailouts. Germany and France reaffirmed their support for such a tax. Mr. Geithner made plain that the U.S. wouldn't support a bank-transaction tax.

A legal fight between U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs and insolvent Canwest Global Communications Corp. is brewing after Goldman filed court documents suggesting creditors of the media conglomerate have been making moves without telling them, The Canadian Press reported. The allegations centre around a numbered company created by Canwest at the request of Goldman to hold the specialty TV assets the Winnipeg-based company bought from Alliance Atlantis in 2007.

An Ontario judge has approved a proposal by CanWest Global Communications Corp. to shift its flagship National Post newspaper to a subsidiary that contains the company's other newsprint assets, such as the Vancouver Sun and Ottawa Citizen, The Globe and Mail reported. In court documents filed this week, CanWest said it would have to close the newspaper if the asset shuffle weren't allowed since creditors at the parent company, which owns Global Television, didn't want to cover further financial losses at the paper.

Canwest Global Communications will tell an Ontario court Friday that it will be forced to shut down the National Post, which has lost $62 million in the last four years, if the newspaper isn't shifted into a company that holds its other dailies, The Canadian Press reported. A hearing is scheduled for the matter on Friday afternoon at the Ontario Superior Court, only hours ahead of a deadline the restructuring media giant suggests could determine the fate of its biggest newspaper by circulation.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said Canadians should not underestimate the "historic" restructuring ahead for the economy as it needs to adapt to a reshaped global marketplace in the post-financial crisis era, the Financial Post reported. However, in a TV interview broadcast on Sunday, he said he's confident the country's business community is up to the task, as their balance sheets are in "outstanding shape" and corporate leaders appear to recognize the changes afoot in the global marketplace. Read more.

Jaguar Financial Corp. is opposing a proposed $192-million takeover of base metals company Canadian Royalties Inc. by Jien Canada Mining Ltd., saying it's unfair to debtholders, The Canadian Press reported. Canadian Royalties, a Quebec-based company that's developing the Nunavik nickel project, announced last week it has a friendly deal to be acquired by Jien. Jien is offering 80 cents per share for 102 million common shares of Canadian Royalties and $800 per $1,000 principal amount of debentures issued by the Val-d'Or-headquartered company.