Dubai World plans to raise as much as $19.4 billion by selling off prized assets over eight years to pay off creditors burned by its overambitious expansion, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. The state-owned conglomerate told creditors at a July 22 meeting, held at Dubai's lavish Atlantis Hotel, that its capital structure was inappropriate and needed "urgent" restructuring, according to the document handed out at the meeting.

The sale of financially-troubled East Coast-based vegetable processor Cedenco Foods to a Japanese company has been approved by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO), The National Business Review reported. Despite being one of New Zealand's biggest fruit and vegetable processors, Cedenco was put into receivership by ANZ National Bank last November, after it defaulted on $46 million owed to the bank and $4.7m to unsecured creditors.

Officials from Pakistan have held talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to discuss its $11bn loan package in the wake of the devastating floods, the BBC reported. The IMF's regional director, Masood Ahmed, told the BBC the organisation wanted to find a way to help Pakistan "through this difficult phase". This could include lowering some fiscal targets or allowing Pakistan to apply for emergency natural disaster funding.

Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s foremost producer of sports utility vehicles (SUV), took the first step to acquire Ssangyong Motor, Korea’s smallest automaker, after the two signed a memorandum of understanding Monday, The Korea Times reported. Early this month, Mahindra was picked as the preferred bidder of the flagging Korean carmaker. After completing due diligence, both sides are set to finalize a definite agreement later this year, possibly in November.

Worried by a sharp slowdown in the economy and a strong yen, Japan's government is considering another round of stimulus to stoke growth as measures enacted during the recent financial crisis begin to expire, The Wall Street Journal reported. But policy makers face a daunting challenge balancing any new spending with their pledges to curb the country's debt, which is already approaching twice the size of Japan's gross domestic product.

The taxpayer will be called on to foot the bill for any shortfall after Allied Nationwide Finance was put into receivership late Friday afternoon, The National Business Review reported. The company – a subsidiary of NZX-listed Allied Farmers, which took over the assets and loans of Eric Watson and Mark Hotchin’s Hanover finance companies, was operating under the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme. The company has about $137 million worth of debentures on issue. Kerryn Downey and Andrew Grenfell of McGrath Nicol were appointed receivers.

Hong Kong bankruptcy petitions in July fell 1.07 percent to 833 from June and were down 43.5 percent from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, Reuters reported. The number of bankruptcy petitions totalled 5,664 for the first seven months of 2010, down 46.8 percent from a year earlier. Bankruptcy orders stood at 5,629 for January-July, down 46.6 percent from a year earlier. Last week, the government raised its full-year economic growth forecast for 2010 to 5-6 percent from the previous forecast of 4-5 percent.

Nakheel, a troubled Dubai-based developer, has paid Dh2.5bn ($681m) to trade creditors as it pushes towards agreement on Dh4bn in unpaid bills to contactors as part of the broader restructuring at Dubai World, its parent, the Financial Times reported. Ali Lootah, Nakheel’s chairman, told a local newspaper on Sunday that the developer had agreed claims with 80 per cent of its trade creditors as it pushes towards the 95 per cent threshold needed to finalise a restructuring agreement.

Allied Nationwide Finance says it missed paying maturing debentures yesterday and needs more time to remedy breaches of its trust deed, The National Business Review reported. The finance company said it expected to make good its investor payments today but needed an extension to a 14-day deadline set by Guardian Trust (NZGT) to comply with financial ratios. The deadline expired last night. Until yesterday, Allied Nationwide had continued to meet its obligations, including repayment of maturing debentures, the company said.

Pakistan is to ask the International Monetary Fund to ease restrictions on a $10bn loan it received in 2008 after concluding that the recent devastating floods had made the conditions attached to the lending programme impossible to meet, the Financial Times reported. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Pakistan’s finance minister, will travel to Washington next week to ask the IMF to restructure the current loan or consider new financing, according to Pakistani officials.