Germany's Blue Wings is looking for funds following a dispute with shareholder Alexander Lebedev, as financial problems led regulators to ban the Duesseldorf-based airline from flying, Reuters reported. The carrier halted flights earlier on Wednesday, mere hours before German aviation authorities revoked its operating license for the time being, according to a spokesman for the company. Blue Wings' financial woes, which have left its staff without pay since mid-November, stem from a lack of financing from shareholders, the spokesman said.
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Russia's state development bank VEB may resume giving out subordinated loans to banks as lending remains flat even after the government disbursed nearly $13 billion of the rescue package to the banking system, Reuters reported. "I concede that we may have to return to this instrument," the central bank's first deputy chairman, Gennady Melikyan, told the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs' (RSPP) banking committee meeting on Thursday.
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Rusal, the largest aluminum producer in the world, which is struggling under $16.7 billion in debt, has agreed with about 70 banks to restructure its loans and begin repayments when earnings improve, the company said Thursday, The New York Times/em> reported. The deal, apparently on lenient terms for Rusal and its owner, the Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska, also clears the way for Rusal to take the next step back from the brink of bankruptcy: selling 10 percent of the company in an initial public offering this month.
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Russia's AvtoVAZ could face bankruptcy if it is unable to reach a debt restructuring deal with its banks, despite support from its 25 percent stakeholder Renault, Reuters reported. Speaking during a presentation at AvtoVAZ headquarters in Togliatti, a company official said the future of the Lada-maker remained on the line and said the company has 22,000 extra staff on its payroll that are not anticipated to have any work before 2012.
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Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, battered by higher gas import prices and the country's deep recession, said on Monday investors in its $500 million Eurobond had agreed to its restructuring terms, Reuters reported. The company, often at the centre of energy rows with Russia that have previously led to supply cuts to Europe, wants to swap its entire foreign debt -- including the Eurobond -- for a new 5-year issue worth $1.65 billion. Bondholders gathered in London in Monday after weeks of consideration and overwhelmingly approved the new terms.
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Hundreds of millions of euros in German state aid planned for carmaker Opel is earmarked for operations in Russia, an Opel trustee with reservations about the project was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview. "More than 600 million euros ($876 million) of the 4.5 billion (in German aid) is supposed to be used to modernize the Russian automotive industry according to the Magna plan," Dirk Pfeil told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview, part of which was released ahead of publication on Monday.
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General Motors' new board may still sell its money-losing European Opel unit to a group led by Canadian auto parts maker Magna, but it needs guarantees that Opel's technology won't be used in Russia to compete against GM's Chevrolet, according to a person briefed on the sale talks, The Associated Press reported. The board on Friday balked at picking between bids for Adam Opel GbmH from a group led by Magna International Inc. that includes Russia's state-owned Sberbank, and one from GM's preferred bidder, Brussels-based investor RHJ International SA.
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The recession has deflated Russia's oil-fueled construction boom, delaying plans to turn Moscow into a high-rise Dubai of the East, The Wall Street Journal reported. The sudden slump in oil and commodity prices ended eight straight years of economic growth. It also clipped property developers' wings. The $15 billion Moscow-City business district is one of the downturn's most eye-catching victims. Dreamt up as a rival to New York's Manhattan or London's Canary Wharf, the district was a showcase development the Kremlin hoped would reflect Russia's rising clout on the world stage.
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A unit of Russian residential developer PIK Group, which is in debt to the tune of $1.3 billion and engaged in lengthy restructuring talks, faces a bankruptcy lawsuit, court filings showed on Monday. Leasing Force has filed the bankruptcy lawsuit against OOO PIK Development in the Moscow Arbitration Court, the court database showed. A PIK spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the company had not fully examined the court filing, Reuters reported.
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A consortium of bidders for Opel led by Magna International will make a new offer for the German carmaker on Monday which includes a demand for rights to Opel’s intellectual property, a Russian newspaper reported. Citing a single source, the Russian daily Kommersant said the consortium, which includes Russian state bank Sberbank, would make the new offer “in the form of an ultimatum” and leave the talks if it was not accepted, The New York Times DealBook blog reported.
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