Georgia

Georgia’s national airline, Georgian Airways, has been put on the block after the carrier filed for insolvency, Eurasianet.org reported. Listed for an asking price of $150 million, the 28-year-old airline said that the pandemic-induced collapse of air travel forced the company to the verge of bankruptcy. Since 1993, “we have proudly flown under the Georgian flag. We have not stopped flying even in the hardest periods for Georgia,” the company said in a January 18 statement.

Georgia’s prime minister announced his resignation yesterday without explaining his reasons, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Irakli Garibashvili is an ally of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream party routed supporters of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in a 2012 election. He has served as prime minister of the former Soviet nation since November 2013. Georgian media had speculated that Garibashvili would step down to focus all his energy on the campaign for Georgian Dream in parliamentary elections next November.

Ineos Group Holdings, Georgia Gulf Corp. and Chemtura Corp. are crashing on a mountain of takeover debt and may follow Lyondell Chemical Co. into bankruptcy, trading in their bonds shows. The combination of $11.7 billion in debt, frozen credit markets and the global recession are forcing the companies to negotiate with creditors to loosen terms of their loans. A glut in supplies that drove prices of polypropylene down by half since October will make it even harder for plastics makers to meet debt payments, just as manufacturers in the Middle East add millions of tons of new supplies.