Norway

The Norwegian mining subsidiary of Australia's Northern Iron Ltd will file for bankruptcy on Wednesday as its $100 million debt has become unsustainable, Northern Iron told a new conference on Wednesday. Attempts to find new investors for the Sydvaranger Gruve AS mining firm, which has close to 400 employees, had also failed, it added. The two largest creditors were top Norwegian bank DNB and government investment agency Innovation Norway, Northern iron said.

Norske Skogindustrier ASA’s senior and junior bondholders have presented competing plans to restructure the Norwegian papermaker’s $1 billion of debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Rothschild and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which are advising a group holding Norske Skog’s 290 million euros ($329 million) of senior bonds due 2019, met with the company to discuss a possible debt-for-equity swap, said two people, who asked not to be identified because negotiations are private.

Norway’s central bank cut interest rates to a fresh record low as it battled to overcome a slump in oil prices that has hit the economy of western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer harder than during the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. Norges Bank cut its overnight deposit rate, the amount that banks earn by parking their spare cash at the central bank, by 25 basis points to 0.75 per cent and warned that more cuts were possible.

Innotech Solar has filed for insolvency, blaming its predicament on “general uncertainty within the European PV market”. The filing was made at Narvik in Norway on 24 March, the company said. German subsidiaries ITS Innotech Solar Module GmbH, ITS Halle Cell GmbH and Energiebau Solar Power GmbH, Cologne, also filed for insolvency on 25 March. The insolvency of the three German subsidiaries affects a total of 120 employees. Their wages and salaries will be secured until the end of May by the German Insolvency fund.

Iron ore miner Northland Resources SE has filed for bankruptcy with more than $650 million in debt following a failed attempt to refinance the business, the Oslo-listed company said in a statement on Monday. "The dramatic fall in iron ore prices this year made it impossible to raise the required financing, which was a prerequisite for continued operations," Northland board Chairman Olav Fjell said. In its third-quarter earnings report last month Northland said its total debts by the end of September stood at $657 million, while cash and cash equivalents were $10.5 million.

Cracks are beginning to appear in the vaunted Nordic model. The four main Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – still grace the top of most global rankings for happiness, competitiveness, the best place to be a woman and even the best place to be born. That has won them a legion of admirers, from Bill Gates to Scottish nationalists and The Economist, the news magazine, who marvel at the Nordic region’s ability to sustain big welfare systems and competitive economies.

Norway is moving closer to easing mortgage lending standards as the nation’s deflating property market prompts concern among lawmakers that existing regulations are too tight, Bloomberg reported. Real estate prices, which have doubled over the past decade and touched a record high this year, are now dropping faster than the central bank had predicted. The Conservative-led government, which won power in September, says it’s now looking into raising the amount banks can lend to borrowers to 90 percent of a property’s value, from 85 percent previously, in an effort to support first-time buyers.

Troubled Scandinavian airline SAS and its labor unions on Monday pushed on with talks aimed at ensuring the group's survival and avoiding bankruptcy after a midnight deadline for a deal passed, The Chicago Tribune reported on a Reuters story. The Scandinavian airline, hit by competition from lower-price rivals, last week announced plans to cut some salaries by up to 17 percent, reduce overall headcount to about 9,000 from 15,000 and reduce costs.

SAS AB on Monday said it would cut salaries and more jobs as part of a new restructuring plan that is dependent partly on the support of labor unions, as the Scandinavian airline carrier tries to convince investors of its long-term future, The Wall Street Journal reported. The airline, partly owned by the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish governments, said its new plan will include cost savings of around three billion Swedish kronor ($445 million), outsourcing parts of customer service and improvements to information technology.

Renewable Energy Corp (REC), a Norwegian manufacturer of solar power equipment, has agreed a new bank facility under a restructuring plan as it seeks to survive a global glut of its key products and high raw material costs, Reuters reported. The company, which saw a previous debt restructuring blocked by its bondholders, has raised $218 million in equity and will take up a new 2 billion crown ($335.3 million) bank debt facility, after bondholders failed to approve changes to a bond loan agreement on Tuesday.