United Kingdom

Japan's Sony Corp is likely to announce closures of Japanese factories and major divisions early next month, the Times of London said on Monday, but the company denied any such plan existed. The maker of Bravia flat TVs and PlayStation video game consoles faces halting sales and mounting piles of inventory in the wake of the financial crisis, even as a stronger yen bites into earnings.

Oilexco Inc., a North Sea producer of oil and gas, lost more than half its market value in London trading today after saying its U.K. subsidiary was likely to file for insolvency administration as early as next week, Bloomberg reported. Calgary-based Oilexco North Sea Ltd. has been informed by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc that lenders aren’t prepared to provide further financing, Oilexco said today in a statement. The unit “does not have any other source of funding,” it said, adding that the parent company “remains solvent.” Oilexco hired Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co.

Denton Wilde Sapte LLP has landed a dual role on the administration of London Scottish Bank, the latest financial institution to apply for administration after entering financial difficulties. The firm is advising Ernst & Young, who have been appointed as administrators, as well as representing the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which will be involved in paying compensation to certain customers of London Scottish Bank.

Reed Smith LLP on Wednesday became the latest firm to announce significant layoffs, saying that it plans to ax 115 support staff in its U.S. offices and up to 11 associates in the U.K, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. In a firmwide memo, Reed Smith said the layoffs were the result of the continuing slowdown of the economy and reduced demand for the firm's services. The layoffs represent less than 4 percent of Reed Smith's total work force. The 115 layoffs were spread across the firm's 15 U.S.

U.K. fund manager New Star Asset Management Group's shares plummeted 43% Monday after the company disclosed that it is holding talks with its bank lenders, The Wall Street Journal reported today. The discussions likely revolve around trying to organize a debt-for-equity swap to help stabilize the highly leveraged firm, a person familiar with the matter said. The company sought to have trading of its shares temporarily suspended Monday as it delivered the potentially gloomy news, but U.K. regulators denied the request.

The administrator for failed lender London Scottish Bank (LSB) on Tuesday said many potential buyers had expressed interest both in the company as a whole and in its profitable debt collection unit, the International Herald Tribune reported today. Accountants Ernst and Young was appointed as administrator for LSB on Sunday after the Financial Services Authority intervened to prevent the bank from accepting deposits because of a shortfall in its regulatory capital.

Insolvency law will be reformed to address a serious concern over the safety of money held with London investment banks which has sprung up in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The government will take a special power in the banking bill that is going through parliament to bolster the protection for client money and assets held in investment companies. A review of the insolvency regime for investment banks will be conducted by next summer, ahead of a full formal consultation on the draft legislation.

PIK Group, one of Russia’s largest residential construction companies, plunged as much as 43 percent in London on Monday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded the developer to "underweight" from "overweight" on concern that it may default on some debt, The Moscow Times reported today. The developer may be unable to repay $700 million of debt due this year as the Moscow city government seeks to overturn housing orders PIK won in October and renegotiate prices, Elena Jouronova, a property analyst at JPMorgan in Moscow, wrote in a note to clients Monday.

Administrators of the European arm of failed investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. are meeting with creditors in London on Friday to sketch out the group's assets and liabilities, The Straits Times reported today. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which was drafted in as administrator to Lehman Brothers International (Europe) to unravel the complex web of the firm's tens of thousands of trades and attempt to claw back funds for creditors, said it will provide an update after the meeting.

Individual bankruptcies in Britain jumped 9.5 percent in the third quarter from last year, while company insolvencies rose 26 percent as the financial crisis hiked the cost of loans, official figures showed Friday. Britain's Office for National Statistics said 17,341 people declared bankruptcy in the three months through September, up from 15,842 in the same quarter of 2007, the Associated Press reported today. The number of bankruptcies was 12 percent higher than it was in the previous quarter.