Skaters gliding across the ice rink at the five-star Le Meridien Lav hotel are unwitting extras in the final acts of the financial crisis as they practice their turns on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Paying as much as 700 euros ($952) a night, they’ve kept the Split, Croatia-based hotel afloat since it was seized by Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International AG when the owners failed to manage repayments on about 50 million euros of loans. The hotel will be sold this year as Europe’s banks seek to offload a record 60 billion euros of bad debts at discounts as high as 95 percent, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. ... (full story)