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Norwegian investor Petter Stordalen and private equity firms Altor and TDR Capital have agreed to buy the Nordic business of collapsed travel company Thomas Cook, Reuters reported. Thomas Cook Northern Europe, also known as the Ving Group, said at the time of Thomas Cook’s liquidation in September that it was looking for a buyer and this week said it had attracted several bids. “We have secured a little more than 6 billion (Swedish) crowns ($617 million),” billionaire property tycoon Stordalen said at a presentation to media and staff today, referring to new liquidity and guarantees. Stordalen’s Strawberry group and Altor will each take a 40 percent stake in the business, with TDR Capital buying the remaining 20 percent, the parties said in a joint statement.

The Trump administration extended a temporary shield over Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. ahead of a looming debt payment, protecting the Houston-based crude refiner from potential seizure by creditors for three months, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Treasury Department yesterday prohibited through Jan. 22 Venezuela bondholders from seizing a controlling stake in Citgo, the South American country’s largest asset in the U.S. By keeping bondholders at bay, if only temporarily, the measure fulfills a request from Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition leaders, who took control of Citgo from President Nicolás Maduro in February and have been scrambling to keep control of the company. Bondholders with collateral rights over Citgo are owed $913 million next Monday and were preparing to foreclose on a 50.1 percent stake in the company if they weren’t paid. The opposition government led by Juan Guaidó has signaled they wouldn’t pay, raising the risk that Citgo could wind up mired in litigation or bankruptcy. The Monday bond payment had pitted the interests of bondholders including Ashmore Group PLC, BlackRock Financial Management Inc. and Contrarian Capital Management LLC against Guaidó’s opposition movement in Caracas.

The merit of Saudi Arabia’s new bankruptcy law, part of efforts to help the kingdom attract investors, should become clearer in about a year after courts handle initial cases, a World Bank representative and senior government official told Reuters. A lack of modern bankruptcy regulations had created difficulties for struggling companies seeking to restructure debt with creditors since the 2009 global financial crisis and the more recent dip in oil prices. Legislation introduced in 2018 is part of broader efforts to overhaul the economy of the world’s top oil exporter to entice foreign investment, create jobs for young Saudis and diversify into non-oil industries. “They have started on insolvency,” said Simeon Djankov, World Bank senior research director and founder of the Doing Business report, which on Thursday ranked Saudi Arabia’s business climate the most improved over the previous year. “The law has been passed, secondary legislation was already passed. Now we need to see whether the courts actually understand how to implement it.” Djankov said only three cases had been settled and around a dozen others are currently in the courts. Several dozen more, expected to be resolved over the next year, should provide enough evidence to evaluate the law’s success, he added.

Liquidator Grant Thornton is seeking litigation funding to step up its hunt for 500 million pounds ($632.30 million) invested in U.K. company Euro Forex, which Chinese police have said was a pyramid scheme, Reuters reported. Reuters reported in 2016 how Euro Forex, or EuroFX, allegedly scammed thousands of investors in China and other countries. EuroFX had a British CEO and headquarters and has since been wound up. Grant Thornton was appointed liquidator in July 2017, and is representing nearly 3,000 investors. It has not yet managed to find any of the missing EuroFX money, it said in a progress report filed with the U.K. companies registrar last month. “We are in discussions with a litigation funder,” said David Ingram, without naming the company or saying how much funding he was looking to raise. He said he hoped to secure the funding in 6-12 months. Grant Thornton is representing 2,939 claimants with a total investment of 475 million pounds, the filing showed. Ingram said it was not possible to say how many people invested in EuroFX overall.

Brazilian renewable energy firm Renova Energia SA has filed for bankruptcy protection, aiming to restructure total debt of around 3.1 billion reais ($741.70 million), it said in a securities filing today, Reuters reported. The bankruptcy filing comes two days after key shareholder Light SA sold its 17.17 percent stake in Renova to an investment fund for a symbolic value of 1 real, in a decision that followed failed talks to sell heavily indebted wind farm projects. On Monday, Renova Chief Financial Officer Claudio Ribeiro resigned in the aftermath of Light’s announcement, leaving Chief Executive Cristiano Corrêa de Barros temporarily overseeing the area until a replacement is found.