United Kingdom

The administrator for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's European unit on Monday unveiled a new plan to dole out the collapsed investment bank's assets directly to creditors, Reuters reported. The administrators, said they would put forward a "contractual solution" that would allow them to distribute "a very significant portion" of the $8.9 billion in securities assets currently under their control, according to a statement published on the administrators' website.

Many struggling British retailers are facing a worse Christmas than last year, when 15 major chains failed, according to insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor, Reuters reported. The company said rising unemployment and fragile consumer confidence would result in many companies entering formal insolvency proceedings within a year.

An international adoption agency that collapsed this summer, stunning hundreds of would-be adoptive parents who had put up thousands of dollars, was moved out of bankruptcy yesterday, The London Free Press reported. The proposed restructuring of Imagine Adoption was approved by a Kitchener court yesterday. Its new directors can take control from bankruptcy trustees who had been running the organization since mid-July. The Cambridge-based agency, which facilitated adoptions largely from Ethiopia, went bankrupt in mid-July amid questions from its then-board about staff spending.

Ukrainian officials held talks in London with investors in hopes of winning a reprieve on $500 million worth of Eurobonds issued by the state energy company Naftogaz that mature Wednesday, Newsday reported on an Associated Press story. The debt-laden company, a crucial link for supplies of Russian natural gas to Europe, is seeking to restructure $1.65 billion in foreign debt coming due this year, including the Eurobonds.

An Australian court has ruled that local governments can pursue financial claims against collapsed U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in Australia and elsewhere, a firm that is funding the litigation said on Monday, Reuters reported. IMF (Australia) Ltd said the Federal Court ruled on Friday in favour of town councils and others which had lost money in collateralised debt obligations marketed and issued by Lehman, opening the door to legal claims to recover their losses.

Receivers have been appointed to manage seven trophy London office buildings owned by billionaire Simon Halabi, real estate company CB Richard Ellis said on Friday, Reuters reported. The buildings are part of a portfolio of assets that back a 1.15 billion pound ($1.84 billion) securitisation which has gone sour after the value of the underlying assets collapsed. CBRE is the "special servicer" of the securitisation seeking to maximise returns to bondholders. The properties include a landmark City of London building occupied by insurer Aviva Plc.

Independent News & Media has issued a fiercely worded attack on its rebel shareholder Denis O'Brien, warning that his "personal antagonism" could scupper rescue talks with its lenders at a critical stage, The Guardian reported. In a combative statement issued to the London and Dublin stock markets late today in response to O'Brien's demand yesterday for a shareholder vote on INM's financial restructuring plan, the board effectively told him to put up or shut up.

An exclusive resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands that catered to celebrities and offered personal butlers and a pillow menu has closed after less than two years of operation, The Associated Press reported. The owner of Nikki Beach Resort & Spa — Leeward Resort Ltd. — has been placed into receivership, General Manager Jonathan Steers said. The resort, which the Travel Channel rated No. 2 on its list of the "21 Hottest Caribbean Escapes" this year, is the latest one in the region to close amid the global economic crisis.

France will not impose unilaterally an overall ceiling on bankers’ bonuses after it narrowed differences with other countries over pay at a meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers, the Financial Times reported. French officials insisted that in spite of Nicolas Sarkozy’s outrage at what he called the “scandal” of bonuses, Paris would not impose its own cap. The president, who has played to public outrage over rewards to executives in an industry blamed for the economic crisis, had called for the G20 summit in Pittsburgh this month to find ways to cap bonuses.

Germany is calling on the world’s largest economies to adopt joint measures to prevent banks from becoming “too big to fail” and holding governments to ransom in future financial crises, the Financial Times reported. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said on Monday – following a meeting in Berlin with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France – that steps to prevent excessive risk-taking by large banks should rank high on the agenda of the summit of the Group of 20 largest economies in Pittsburgh later this month.