2-Hour Personal Financial Management Instructional Course

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Satisfy Your Credit Counseling Requirement Before Filing Bankruptcy

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Developer Ian Bruce Eichner’s Cosmopolitan Resort Casino located on the Las Vegas Strip got caught last year in the capital-markets crisis and is headed toward foreclosure, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Deutsche Bank AG has sunk nearly $1 billion into the project, and two other lenders have provided $175 million. The willingness of lenders to give such developers more money helped fuel the commercial real estate boom that started in 2003 and reached its zenith in early 2007. Some of those lenders now face the potential for loan losses.

Société Générale, the French bank that was rocked by a multibillion-dollar rogue trading scandal, said late yesterday that Daniel Bouton would step aside as chief executive but would remain nonexecutive chairman as part of a management reorganization, the New York Times reported today. Bouton will be succeeded by Frédéric Oudea, the chief financial officer, who joined the bank’s senior management team last month as a deputy chief executive.  For nearly three months, French politicians have been pressuring Société Générale’s management to take responsibility for nearly 5 billion euros ($7.9 billion) in losses suffered after the bank closed out 50 billion euros ($79.3 billion) in unauthorized bets made by a junior derivatives trader, Jérôme Kerviel.

Xerium Technologies Inc. paper disclosed that it may default on some of its loans and that it could file for bankruptcy soon if the lenders call in the debts, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. The company said that it “was in compliance with its financial covenants under the credit agreement at Dec. 31, 2007 and expects that it will generate cash flow from operations sufficient to service the debt under the credit agreement prior to the stated maturity of the debt if there is not otherwise an event of default under the debt.” However, Xerium said that it expects it will not meet the terms of the covenant for the first quarter of 2008 and afterward. The company said that it is contemplating a private placement of equities in order to generate enough cash flow, through private investors, to pay down the debt it has absorbed from its credit agreement.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain yesterday granted Delphi Corp. a three-month extension of its right to control its bankruptcy case, giving the auto-parts supplier more time to complete its reorganization plan, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Judge Drain extended Delphi’s deadline to win approval of its chapter 11 plan to March 31 and also gave the company until May 31 to win creditor support for its plan. Delphi faced a Dec. 31 deadline to complete its plan and a Feb. 29 deadline to solicit creditor support. The company has already proposed a reorganization plan and won approval from the court to send the plan to creditors for a vote.