North America

Centro Properties Group, one of Australia's highest profile casualties of the global credit crisis, was given a lifeline on Tuesday when lenders agreed to refinance $4.65 billion in overdue debt, Reuters reported. Without the refinancing, Centro could have been forced into administration by its creditors, potentially triggering a fire sale of retail properties in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Centro has been struggling to sell shopping centres to help pay down debt after credit markets froze following its rapid expansion in the United States last year.

Syscan International Inc., a provider of RFID-enabled supply chain solutions, has announced that it has filed under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and that H.H. Davis & Assoc. Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, has been appointed by the court to handle matters with its creditors, FOXBusiness reported. The board decided to pursue this course of action after the expected private placement with Bluehill ID failed to materialize and after previous attempts to raise capital and effect a company merger and sale were unsuccessful.

Over 100 companies globally have defaulted on their debt this year, affecting $302 billion worth of securities, but that figure could rise as nearly 900 issuers are poised for credit downgrades, Standard & Poor's said on Monday. Of the 108 defaults this year, 86 are from the United States, seven from Europe, five each from Asia and Canada, three from Latin America, and two from Russia. The figure contrasts with 22 defaults in 2007 and 30 in 2006.

German reinsurer Global General and Reinsurance Co. Ltd., formerly the sixth largest reinsurance company in the world, has filed for Chapter 15 protection in the U.S., Bankruptcy Law360 reported. The filing indicated liabilities of more than $100 million and assets of more than $100 million. The company has estimated that it has between 50 and 99 creditors. Howard Seif, global chair of Chadbourne & Parke LLP’s bankruptcy and restructuring practice, is commandeering the U.S. proceedings. The U.K.

Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Rural Bank of Parañaque, Inc. after the central bank ordered its closure on Monday. The receivership order, which meant the responsibility of recouping as much of the bank’s unpaid loans has been transferred to the state deposit insurer, was stated in Monetary Board Resolution 1616 issued on Monday. Central bank records showed the bank, known for its double-your-money-time-deposit scheme, has a capital deficiency of P983.5 million as of July 2007. RBPI has 37,400 deposit accounts worth P5.4 billion, of which P5 billion is insured.

Landsbanki Islands hf sought bankruptcy protection from its U.S. creditors on Tuesday, the last of Iceland's three largest banks to do so in the last two weeks, Reuters reported. The Reykjavik-based lender filed a Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition with the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York. It said it had more than $1 billion of both assets and liabilities. Iceland's banks had taken on billions of dollars of debt in recent years to fund aggressive overseas expansion.

Chrysler Canada Inc has warned that it could shift production from two of its plants in Ontario to the United States, cutting more than 8,000 Canadian jobs, if it fails to get the C$1.6 billion ($1.27 billion) it needs in emergency aid from the federal and provincial governments, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The Canadian subsidiaries of the reeling Detroit Three automakers want a total of at least $6 billion in loans and credit lines from the federal and Ontario governments to stay alive, but won't go into much detail on how they would spend the money, the Toronto Star reported Saturday. General Motors of Canada Ltd., the country's biggest automaker, is seeking $800 million by year's end and $1.6 billion later, while Chrysler Canada Inc. is asking for $1.6 billion, according to sources familiar with the submissions.

Bankruptcies in Canada numbered 9,468 in October, up 7.2 percent from September and 21.1 percent from October 2007, with the pain concentrated among individuals, the Canadian Press reported today. The office of the federal Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported yesterday that 8,972 consumers filed for bankruptcy in October, up 7.5 percent from October and 22.8 percent from a year earlier. Business bankruptcies totalled 496 for the month, up 1.4 percent from the previous month but down 3.3 percent from the year-ago corporate toll.

German biodiesel producer Campa GmbH has declared insolvency for a second time this year and a commercial court in Wurzburg appointed a new administrator, a court official said on Tuesday. Campa first declared insolvency in May but resumed production in early June after being bought by a consortium of about 2,000 farmers in the southern state of Bavaria, Reuters reported. It operates a 150,000 tonne annual capacity plant producing biodiesel from rapeseed oil. Campa's oil mill was purchased by U.S. agribusiness group Archer Daniels Midland in August.