%1

British Prime Minister Theresa May today sent formal notice of the country’s intention to withdraw from the European Union, the New York Times reported today. Speaking in Parliament, May said that she was invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, putting Britain on track to leave the European Union in 2019 and raising a host of thorny issues involved in untangling a four-decade relationship. In addition to a welter of trade and customs matters, the Conservative government faces the prospect of a new independence referendum in Scotland, where a majority voted to remain in the European Union, and deep worries about the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland. “Today the government acted on the democratic will of the British people, and it acts too on the clear and convincing position of this house,” May told Parliament. “The Article 50 process is now underway, and, in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.”

Rig contractor Ocean RIG UDW Inc. filed for chapter 15 protection in a U.S. court amid a deep and prolonged downturn in the industry, Reuters reported yesterday. The Cyprus-based company, which had $3.25 billion in debt as of Dec. 31, filed for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York on Monday. The company said on Tuesday it entered into an agreement with creditors representing over 72 percent of Ocean RIG's outstanding consolidated indebtedness for a financial restructuring. Ocean RIG's chief executive, George Economou, said last year that the company would consider alternatives, including a possible reorganization under U.S. bankruptcy laws.

Japan's Toshiba Corp. has informed its main lenders it is planning for its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co LLC to file for bankruptcy on March 31, Reuters reported today. Toshiba expects a chapter 11 filing for Westinghouse would expand charges related to the U.S. unit in the current financial year to around 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) from publicly flagged estimates of 712.5 billion yen. Toshiba is seeking to limit future losses at Westinghouse with a chapter 11 filing. Westinghouse has been plagued by huge cost overruns at two U.S. nuclear projects.

A U.S. judge said Hanjin Shipping Co.’s creditors can foreclose on the South Korean company’s shipping containers and sell them, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge John K. Sherwood of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., on Friday gave the green light to Maher Terminals LLC, which runs one of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s marine terminals, to foreclose on the container assets and sell them to pay off claims owed by Hanjin. In February, a Seoul court declared Hanjin would have to liquidate its assets — including its ships, stakes in seaport terminals and containers — marking the final chapter in its bankruptcy process and one of the ocean-shipping industry’s largest collapses ever. Maher and other creditors in late February asked the court for permission to sell the Hanjin containers taking up space on their docks, court papers show. Maher can foreclose on the 256 Hanjin containers stored at its facility, and has the right to use the proceeds to pay down their post-bankruptcy storage charges still owed to Maher by Hanjin, court papers show.

Indian stressed-asset deals will increase this year as bad loans rise and reforms pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government start to bear fruit, according to the nation’s top investment banker, Bloomberg News reported today. Interest will come from both strategic buyers and private equity firms, said Vishal Kampani, managing director of JM Financial Ltd., the former joint venture partner of Morgan Stanley in India. JM Financial was the No. 1 adviser on Indian mergers and acquisitions in each of the past two years, working on $51.6 billion of deals over the period, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “The recent rules which grant foreign ownership of asset reconstruction firms and the bankruptcy code will accelerate the pace of mergers and acquisitions in the stressed asset space,” Kampani said. Stressed assets — made up of bad loans, restructured debt and advances to companies that can’t meet servicing requirements — have risen to about 16.6 percent of total loans, the highest level among major economies. The Indian government has overhauled century-old laws that regulate insolvency and allowed foreign investors to take full control of asset reconstruction firms to help rid banks of bad debt that’s holding back credit growth and job creation.