Spain

Spain's government on Friday approved new rules to help struggling companies cut debt and avoid bankruptcy as the country heads into economic recovery with weak job growth, Reuters reported. The overhaul is designed to ease loan refinancings by making it harder for small creditors to veto deals. It also creates a mechanism for creditors to write off part of a borrower's debt. "The aim is to prevent a liquidity problem or temporary solvency issue from forcing a company with good earnings and growth perspectives ...

Pescanova SA, the Spanish fishing company whose former board hid more than 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) of debt, is asking lenders to take nominal losses of as much as 97.5 percent as part of restructuring proposals, Bloomberg News reported. Shareholders will get 4.99 percent of a new company and Damm SA, the Spanish brewer, and Luxempart SA will become Pescanova’s industrial partner, according to a regulatory filing. The company will get as much as 150 million euros in capital and long-term financing under the plans presented to a Spanish court yesterday.

Spain launched the privatization of its largest bailed-out lender, Bankia SA, marking a turning point in the country's revamp of its banking industry, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Spanish government is to sell 7.5% of its stake in Bankia by Friday, according to a regulatory filing posted after the close of trading Thursday in Madrid. The sale is a first step as the government seeks to whittle down its 68% holding in the bank.

Spanish entertainment company Zinkia, owner of the children's TV character Pocoyo, entered administration on Wednesday, the latest Spanish company to seek protection from creditors in an economic slowdown, Reuters reported. Despite reaching agreement on refinancing with bondholders, banks and commercial creditors, Zinkia did not manage to renegotiate the terms of a 2.5 million euro ($3.4 million) loan with a private lender, the company said in a statement.

Spain's government is studying measures to help struggling companies restructure their debts, which could include transferring banks' exposures to such firms to a newly-created external fund, a banking source familiar with the talks said. Spanish investment bank N+1 has produced a study, seen by Reuters, on the potential creation of a vehicle that would aid debt-for-equity swaps by allowing banks to exchange loans for stakes and transfer those stakes to an externally-managed fund.

Codere SA (CDR) formally rejected a final restructuring proposal from bondholders less than three months before the Spanish gaming company’s deadline to agree to a restructuring or request full creditor protection, Bloomberg News reported. The plan bondholders submitted Feb. 2 doesn’t treat shareholders equally by allowing minority shareholders to have 3.2 percent of Codere and the founding Martinez Sampedro family 14.3 percent, the company said in a statement. The proposed debt structure is not the best solution for the company, which needs to lower its interest payments, Codere said.

When José Ignacio Goirigolzarri came out of retirement to take the helm of Spain's biggest distressed lender, more than his own reputation as a first-rate banker was at stake. So was the reputation of Spain's financial system, whose woes had undermined faith in Europe's common currency, The Wall Street Journal reported. After nearly two years as executive chairman of Bankia SA, Mr. Goirigolzarri is making measurable progress in overhauling the bank that in 2012 registered the biggest loss in Spanish corporate history.

At least a dozen large international investors are lining up to look at a large Spanish property-loan portfolio sale that will take the temperature of one of Europe's most distressed real-estate markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. Commerzbank AG recently began shopping around the portfolio—code named Project Octopus—that includes loans with a face value of €4.4 billion ($6 billion) that are backed by shopping centers, hotels and offices.

Commerzbank has sold some of its property loans in Spain, as it continues to rid itself of the assets held in its so-called “bad bank”, the Financial Times reported. The German lender said it had sold non-performing loans worth €710m from its Spanish commercial property portfolio to undisclosed “international investors”. The sale follows reports in recent days that Commerzbank is in talks with private equity companies Apollo and Cerberus to offload its entire Spanish property portfolio, which is now worth a little more than €4bn, according to one person familiar with the situation.

Spanish gaming group Codere failed to reach an agreement with bondholders over a major debt restructuring on Thursday, increasing pressure on the company as it battles to avoid insolvency, Reuters reported. The bingo hall and casino owner is struggling to keep up with debt payments because of higher tax bills and other costs and is one of many Spanish companies grappling with high debt levels even as the country emerges from recession.