A consortium led by top oil trader Vitol has entered exclusive talks to acquire stakes in Nigerian offshore fields that are held by Brazil’s Petrobras and its partners, industry sources said, Reuters reported. The assets are estimated to be worth up to $2.5 billion, the two banking sources and one industry source told Reuters. The buyers are talking to state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, which is leading the sale, the sources added.

Steinhoff International Holding NV agreed to sell its Austrian furniture retailer Rudolf Leiner GmbH and real estate assets to billionaire Rene Benko’s Signa Holding GmbH to prevent a looming insolvency of the unit, Bloomberg News reported. The conditional offer could plug a cash-draining hole for Steinhoff, which has been trying to restructure the unprofitable Austrian business also known as Kika/Leiner amid fierce competition from bigger rival XXXLutz and Sweden’s Ikea. Kika/Leiner’s fate has hung in the balance since credit insurers withdrew guarantees for its suppliers earlier this month.

As Angola seeks to attract foreign investors to help diversify its oil-dependent economy, the country’s biggest trading partner, China, looks set to take a leading role, but the considerable leverage it is able to wield may leave Africa’s third-largest economy short-changed, the Financial Times reported. With Angola heavily indebted to China, Beijing may drive some hard bargains, as has happened in south Asian countries deeply in hock to the Chinese.

Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

Swiss mining giant Glencore PLC unveiled a sweeping $5.6 billion restructuring of its troubled Congo copper company, Katanga Mining Ltd., resolving a heated dispute with Congo’s state-run mining company about a massive debt load it has built up over the past decade, The Wall Street Journal reported. Glencore said Katanga Mining will issue $5.6 billion in stock, which it will use to retire debt. The company had been saddled with $9.2 billion in high-interest debt, most of which is owed to Glencore.

Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most-populous country and the continent’s fastest growing economy, is inviting big business to cash in, Bloomberg News reported. For so long a closed shop, the Horn of Africa nation on Tuesday invited foreign investors to buy stakes in state-owned telecoms, shipping, power generation and aviation companies, a rare opportunity to access such a large market. The bonanza will extend to railways, sugar mills and industrial parks, with the top brass of the ruling party embarking on long-awaited market reforms.

Credit insurers have decided to withdraw insurance cover for South African retailer Steinhoff International's loans, Steinhoff's Austrian subsidiary Kika/Leiner said on Monday. "The loss of the credit insurance is a result of the Steinhoff crisis," Kika/Leiner said in a statement. Steinhoff, whose retail chains include Britain's Poundland, Mattress Firm in the U.S. and Conforama in France, has been fighting to recover from the fallout from accounting irregularities discovered in December, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

A Botswana court has overturned last month’s High Court decision to take Tati Nickel Mine out of provisional liquidation because the earlier ruling did not consider the impact on creditors, Reuters reported. Tati, a subsidiary of the liquidated BCL mine group, has been under provisional liquidation since October 2016. The liquidation was extended twice after liquidator Nigel Dixon-Warren requested more time to pursue a deal with investors. The High Court took the company out of liquidation in April following the lapse of the last extension.

Lawyers for jailed Congo Republic opposition figure Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make his release a condition for the approval of a bailout for the debt-crippled nation, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Like other Central African oil producing countries, Congo has been hit by low crude prices. Several neighbors, including Chad and Gabon, have already secured bailouts from the IMF.