The agreement with a noteholder for its unit known as The Rouse Company LP (TRCLP), extends the maturity date of those notes to Dec. 11, 2008, the company said in a statement on Monday. The due date was previously Dec. 1.

The Rouse Company was bought by General Growth for $7.2 billion in 2004, and runs high-end shopping malls like Boston’s Fanueil Hall, Baltimore’s The Gallery at Harborplace and New York’s South Street Seaport. General Growth assumed $5.2 billion of the company’s debt as part of the deal.

Earlier this month, General Growth — the No. 2 mall owner in the United States — confirmed it had hired Chicago law firm Sidley Austin as bankruptcy counsel, as it negotiates with its lenders.

The sagging U.S. economy and global credit crunch has hurt mall owners this year, as they rely heavily on debt to finance mall purchases and improvements, and weaker business conditions have put a strain on rental income from tenants.

The extension comes on top of extensions it has received from other lenders. Last week General Growth said it had won a two-week extension on the maturity of $900 million in mortgage loans related to two Las Vegas shopping centers, Fashion Show mall and Shoppes at the Palazzo.

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National Amusements, which owns controlling stakes in CBS Corp and Viacom Inc faces a deadline to repay some $800 million in debt by the end of the year. It has a total of about $1.6 billion in debt outstanding.

But discussions to restructure the debt have a long way to go and that date could be extended, the paper said citing people familiar with the situation.

At the core of the discussion is a debate about which assets National Amusements will have to sell to pare its towering debt, the paper said.

The discussion is currently focused on the sale of some of the Redstone family’s movie theaters and a stake in WMS Industries Inc, which sells slot machines, the paper said.

On Monday, National Amusements sold its stake of around 87.2 percent in Midway Games Inc to investor Mark Thomas to ease the debt load.

National Amusements had already sold about $230 million of shares of CBS Corp and Viacom to help meet debt payments, and has been in talks with banks in hopes of avoiding a debt crunch.

Earlier in November, Redstone has said he doesn’t want to sell any more stock in Viacom Inc or CBS Corp, the media companies he controls.

National Amusements could not be immediately reached for a comment by Reuters.

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Sales during last week’s Black Friday, the traditional kickoff of the holiday shopping season, were better than many analysts expected. But the growth likely came at the expense of margins as stores cut prices aggressively.

That means investors will look not only for December sales forecasts when retailers report November sales this week, but also for comments on margins and earnings.

“They are just going to have to suck it up and take a hit on the margin side this season,” said Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics.

Perkins has forecast a 1.7 percent decline in November sales at stores open at least a year. But with the job market continuing to weaken, retailers that succeed will have to continue to offer the best discounts.

“It seems like everything is about price point right now. If you weren’t on sale, you’re probably not selling right now,” Perkins said.

Analysts on average expect a 2.5 percent decline in November same-store sales, according to Thomson Reuters data. That would be the biggest drop since Thomson Reuters began collecting same-store sales data in 2000.

Excluding Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which has been the big winner as shoppers look to save money, the decline is 7.1 percent.

Thomson Reuters said on Nov. 6 its October same-store sales index fell 0.7 percent, worse than its estimate for a 0.3 percent drop.

A DUD NOVEMBER

For most of November, consumers cut spending sharply as access to credit tightened, home values fell and costs remained high for essentials like food.

“The remainder of the month was largely a dud as the credit crunch continues to stifle consumer spending,” Oppenheimer analyst Robert Samuels said in a research note.

The timing of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, which fell later in the month this year, also hurt sales, analysts said. Mild weather cut into sales of winter apparel.

“Even in normal circumstances, the loss of a week of post-Thanksgiving sales would have resulted in a weak November,” Brean Murray, Carret & Co analyst Eric Beder said in a research note.

“When the current economic malaise and slightly warmer weather are added to the mix, the potential for any positive results becomes remote.”

But Beder also said that investor expectations for retailers have reached a low, giving the sector a chance to bounce back in December. The Standard & Poor’s retail index is down about 20 percent since the end of October.

Among retailers, Wal-Mart’s steady focus on offering low prices will keep it ahead of rivals, analysts said. The world’s largest retailer had been aggressively promoting toys and food in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Analysts on average forecast a 2 percent increase in same-store sales for the discounter, one of the few retailers expected to show a rise in November, according to Thomson Reuters.

Rival Target Corp is expected to post a 9.1 percent decline. Target had forecast a decline of 6 percent to 9 percent, with half the decline due to the later Thanksgiving.

Overall, department stores like Kohl’s and J.C. Penney are expected to post an overall 14.5 percent decline. Apparel retailers’ same-store sales are expected to drop 11.6 percent and teen and children’s apparel is forecast to fall 12.3 percent.

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The moves comes after stock markets around the world plunged, jolted by a report that confirmed the U.S. economy was in the third-longest recession since the Great Depression.

Japanese central bankers huddled in an emergency meeting to devise ways to get funding to capital-starved firms, while the persistent financial crisis kept pressure on policymakers to go on cutting borrowing costs and on investors to seek safety first.

Any optimism built up after last week’s biggest global stock market rally in at least 20 years was dashed by a series of grim reports on factory activity in China, Europe and the United States and stark warnings from policymakers.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private research group that makes the final call on when U.S. recessions start and end, declared that one began in December 2007.

The Reserve Bank of Australia cut its cash rate by a full percentage point to 4.25 percent, a bigger margin than the market had expected, and said the perilous state of the global economy left the door open for yet more cuts.

“The economy is poised on a knife edge and the RBA is going to keep cutting until it starts to get traction with consumers and housing,” said Macquarie senior economist Brian Redican.

Central banks in Britain, the euro zone and New Zealand, all mired in recessions, will almost certainly cut interest rates as well later this week, hoping to get ahead of rapidly cooling consumer prices that raise the spectre of deflation.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech on Monday further cuts in the benchmark rate below 1 percent were “certainly feasible.” He also said the central bank could take steps such as buying “substantial quantities” of longer-dated U.S. government debt or making more targeted injections of liquidity into the market.

MORE IMBALANCES

However, such unusual measures could ultimately lead to other problems because market prices would be distorted by official tinkering, economists warned.

“The longer-term implications of these actions, if prolonged, might also lead to unintentional financial imbalances,” said Thomas Lam, senior treasury economist with United Overseas Bank in Singapore, in a note.

Companies around the world were scrambling to cut costs and keep expectations about their profits realistic as market conditions grew volatile after a brief respite last week.

Stocks tumbled across Asia on Tuesday on expectations for more economic gloom. Japan’s Nikkei share average fell 4.6 percent as the stronger yen, reflecting investor retreat from risky assets, added to exporters’ pain. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led the regional decline, falling 5 percent.

Toyota Motor Corp said it would cut management bonuses by 10 percent as the global economic slowdown deals a painful blow to the world’s no. 1 carmaker, which will reportedly at the end of this month suspend production for two days at some plants .

The Bank of Japan called an emergency meeting to find ways to cut corporate borrowing costs.

Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said he welcomed any steps the Bank of Japan takes to ease the funding burden on companies, adding it would be beneficial for Japan if the government and the BOJ worked as one on monetary policy.

Meanwhile, the stability of some of the world’s leading developed economies continued to be called into question given the rising bill of trillions of dollars of rescue packages and bank capital injections that so far have barely had an impact on the sharp global slowdown.

Euro zone finance ministers were in Brussels to hash out how to enact the European Commission’s 200 billion euro ($252 billion) plan to pull out the bloc from recession. But Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, bristled at suggestions that it should spend more.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will likely push for additional fiscal stimulus once he takes office in January, though he has not yet put a price tag on one. Democrats in the House of Representatives were talking about a package in the range of $500 billion.

Across the border, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper could be toppled in a confidence vote set for Monday after drawing fire from opposition for not doing enough to help the country’s economy.

China, widely expected to remain the main driver of the global economic growth next year, was also under pressure to do more to counter plummeting demand and rising unemployment.

The world’s fourth-biggest economy should take further steps, including cutting interest rates and taxes as well as increasing investments aimed at spurring domestic consumption, a state think-tank said on Tuesday. The Shanghai Securities News cited unidentified sources as saying that Beijing would set a target of 8 percent for economic growth in 2009.

Growth in total output slowed to 9 percent in the third quarter from 10.1 percent in the second.

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Beijing has dramatically relaxed its policy stance in recent weeks out of concern that the global financial crisis is badly damaging growth and job creation in the world’s fourth-largest economy, risking social instability.

The annual central economic work conference, which will take place from Monday until Wednesday, will discuss how to implement the recently adopted “expansive” fiscal policy and “moderately easy” monetary stance, one of the officials said.

“The meeting will focus on making arrangements to implement the revised policies and will set a goal of 8 percent for 2009 economic growth,” he said. He declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Annual GDP growth slowed to 9.0 percent in the third quarter, from 10.1 percent in the second, and economists have pencilled in a much weaker rate for this quarter.

An 8 percent growth rate is widely regarded as the minimum growth rate that China needs to absorb the millions of people entering the work force every year.

Multiplying protests by laid-off workers, and a spate of strikes by taxi drivers across China, have highlighted the strains that slowing growth are putting on the social fabric.

A pair of manufacturing surveys released on Monday showed output, employment and new orders slumped in November as business took fright at the prospect of a protracted global downturn and persistent financial uncertainty.

Ma Jiantang, the newly appointed chief commissioner for the National Bureau of Statistics, struck an optimistic note about the outlook for growth.

Writing in the China Information News, Ma said the array of forceful measures rolled out by the authorities would be effective in tapping China’s huge domestic consumption potential.

But the State Information Centre, a think-tank under the National Development and Reform Commission, the planning agency, said further steps were needed to counter a sharp slowdown.

GRIM OUTLOOK

In a research note published in the China Securities Journal, the centre recommended cutting taxes as well as increasing investments aimed at spurring domestic consumption.

“Our economy is at a historically significant juncture. In the short term, there is a risk of a fast decline in economic growth,” it said.

The think-tank said the central bank should slash interest rates and reserve requirements further so that banks have more money to lend out and so that borrowing costs for companies fall.

The central bank slashed borrowing costs by 1.08 percentage points last week, the deepest cut in 11 years, to complement a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) fiscal stimulus plan unveiled on Nov. 9.

The central government will spend 30 percent of the huge sum itself between now and the end of 2010 and hopes to catalyse the rest from local authorities and state-owned banks and companies.

But consumers are wary of spending freely because they face heavy out-of-pocket expenses for health care and school fees. Few Chinese, moreover, can look forward to a good, secure pension.

The solution, the State Information Centre said, is for the government to invest more in housing, education and health care, and to further lower corporate and personal income taxes, so people have more disposable income.

The think-tank also recommended extra measures to slow a slide in export growth, such as increased export tax rebates for textile, high-tech and agricultural processing firms.

“The trends for our country’s exports remain grim,” it said.

Indeed, the State Information Centre said the overall outlook for 2009 was bleak despite recent monetary and fiscal easing.

“It is projected that in 2009 the unemployment rate will continue rising, and the employment situation will become more severe,” the report said.

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A spokeswoman from HSBC confirmed on Tuesday it had increased mortgage rates by between 50 and 75 basis points, equivalent to an interest rate of 3.5 and 4 percent.

The increase was the biggest by the bank in a decade, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

HSBC had tracked other local banks’ moves to raise mortgage rates, the spokeswoman said, declining to comment further.

Shares of HSBC had dropped 5.8 percent to HK$79.55 by the midsession on Tuesday.

Blue-chip Hang Seng property stocks fell, with the properties sub-index falling 6 percent, lagging a 4.9 percent drop on the broader Hang Seng Index.

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- Australia c.bank slashes rates by 100 basis points

- Japan business mood slides, BOJ meets on funding

- U.S. entered recession Dec 2007 - NBER panel

- Bernanke says Fed has options as rates approach zero

- U.S. House to seek about $500 bln economic stimulus

MARKETS

- Nikkei down nearly 5 percent, other Asia stocks also slide

- Yen slips back as Japan investors buy abroad

- Oil hits 3-½ year low, falls below $48

QUOTES

“The (Australian) economy is poised on a knife edge and the RBA is going to keep cutting until it starts to get traction with consumers and housing.” - Macquarie senior economist Brian Redican.

“Miserable readings from other manufacturing indexes around the world today — in China and throughout Europe — emphasize the depth of the global downturn” - Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

“It’s clear that we need to do something and it needs to be substantive” - Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos.

“Fear is the overriding factor” - Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed-income analysis at Action Economics.

EVENTS

TUESDAY, Dec. 2

- Bank of Japan policy board emergency meeting at 0400 GMT.

THURSDAY, Dec. 4

WASHINGTON - Labor Department issues weekly Jobless Claims report at 1330 GMT.

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“I think the market is living on a day-to-day basis,” said a trader at a local bank. “It would be better not to move given the continued uncertainty in the markets.”

“People are willing to hold on to their positions until next year and they are comfortable with what they have without necessarily having to buy anything.”

Traders said annual November inflation data, due for release on Friday, would not offer any surprises since inflation was firmly on a decelerating path.

The central bank forecast November inflation to come in at 10.3-11.2 percent from a year ago against 11.2 percent in October. It estimates inflation would average between 9-11 percent this year after 2.8 percent in 2007.

The central bank sold dollars on Tuesday to support the struggling peso, which fell to as low as 49.5 pesos per dollar, weighed down by investor concerns about the impact of worst financial crisis in decades.

Manila’s main share index fell almost 5 percent on Tuesday following the slide in U.S. stocks on worries of deepening economic gloom. An auction of 6 billion pesos ($122 million) worth of 20-year Treasury bonds on Tuesday is expected to track secondary market rate levels, traders said. The 20-year paper was quoted at 13.175 percent, up slightly from 13.1058 percent a week ago.
Average best bids and done deals in the secondary market*:

BEST BIDS DONE DEALS

Dec 2 Nov 24 Dec 2 Nov 24

(in percent)

three-month 6.4904 6.5981 6.4000 6.5000

six-month 6.8019 7.0423 6.7250 6.9750

one-year 7.2173 7.2731 7.1500 7.2000

two-year 7.4654 7.6519 7.3500 7.5500

three-year 8.0750 7.8442 7.7500 7.7000

four-year 8.3608 8.2954 8.2500 8.1250

five-year 8.5896 8.4192 8.5000 8.2250

seven-year 8.8827 8.7154 8.7500 8.5000

10-year 9.4423 9.2288 9.3750 9.1000

20-year 13.1750 13.1058 13.000 12.900

25-year 13.6385 13.5712 13.500 13.400

*Values based on fixing by the Philippine Dealing and Exchange

Corp (PDEX) as of 11:17 a.m..
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Verdicts would also be issued for two smaller coalition partners in the case, which could see them disbanded for electoral fraud in the December 2007 election. Somchai and other ministers from these parties would then have to step down.

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