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Romania plans to help chemical firm Oltchim acquire Petrom's petrochemicals plant by next month, Prime Minister Emil Boc was quoted as saying on Thursday. Constantin Roibu, the chief executive of state-controlled Oltchim, told Reuters his company was in talks with several banks for a €70 million ($100 million) loan to fund the acquisition. Many analysts say the debt-laden Oltchim faces serious problems in obtaining financing, especially during a global cash squeeze that has also reduced demand for its products.

ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker by volume, Wednesday said it was in advanced discussions with banks to change the covenant on its loans to give the company greater flexibility should market conditions deteriorate further, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Luxembourg-based company said it didn't anticipate breaching the existing covenant but that it was "prudent given the current operating environment" to put new terms in place.

KPMG Restructuring, administrator to Coffee Republic, is planning to complete the sale of the coffee bar and deli chain by the end of next week, the Financial Times reported. Richard Hill of KPMG said he hoped to sell the brand, the company-operated outlets and the franchise operation. The deadline for expressing an interest has been set for Monday. A preferred buyer should be chosen by Wednesday, followed by completion on Friday. Shares in Coffee Republic were suspended on Aim on Friday "pending clarification of the financial position of certain subsidiaries".

Addleshaw Goddard earlier this year asked partners to return some profits handed out ahead of schedule in order to pay a tax bill, LegalWeek reported. The top 20 law firm requested that equity partners pay back some profits that had been distributed in late 2008. In October last year the firm paid out all equity partners' quarterly profit distributions from the 2007-08 financial year--amounting to £12m in total--even though they were not due to be paid until November 2008 and February 2009.

The detention by authorities in China of four Rio Tinto PLC employees this week, at a time when the mining company is engaged in major business deals in the country, offers a reminder of how the country's murky legal system can be entwined with its commercial interests, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Australian government said Wednesday that one of the Rio Tinto employees, a general manager involved in iron-ore sales, is accused of stealing Chinese state secrets, apparently in the course of his employment.

Gulf Arab banks will face rising defaults and rescheduling of debt as the region’s real-estate slump hurts economies, according to Alvarez & Marsal LLC, the firm that is restructuring Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bloomberg reported. “There will be debt restructuring in the region, involving the majority of the banks,” Sankar Krishnan, managing director for the firm’s Middle East unit, said in an interview in Dubai yesterday. “There are developers that are going to fail and banks will end up holding a lot of half-finished projects.

The head of General Motors Corp.'s German unit Adam Opel GmbH said the interest of several potential investors is generally positive as it strengthens the auto maker's negotiating position, but it must not delay the sales process. "We need a deal fast," Hans Demant said in an internal letter to staff seen by Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday. Mr. Demant said that takeover talks are being held with Magna International Inc., Ripplewood Holdings, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. Ltd. and Fiat SpA. Each investor has its own strategic approach, Mr. Demant said.

A default on Islamic bonds by Kuwaiti firm Investment Dar is just the tip of the iceberg, with more failures expected as the weak global economy hits issuers, industry experts warned on Wednesday. Unlike traditional banking, the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry has just begun to feel the chill of the global downturn, with practitioners and analysts trying to assess the extent of the fallout on the sector, Reuters reported. Investment Dar said in May it had defaulted on a $100 million Islamic bond, the first such default for a major, public Islamic instrument in the Gulf.

Japanese corporate bankruptcies rose 7.4 percent in June from a year earlier as businesses struggled to get access to credit and the global recession crippled sales, Bloomberg reported. A total of 1,422 companies went out of business in the month, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. Bankruptcies climbed 8.3 percent in the first half of 2009 to 8,169 cases, the report showed. Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said this week that funding remains tight even though some companies are finding it easier to issue debt.

An investor consortium has agreed to fund a debt-restructuring plan for Montreal-based precision engineering company Mecachrome International pursuant to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), TechFinance reported. The agreement and the plan will be submitted for approval to the Superior Court of Québec on Thursday. Under the plan, the investors will invest approximately €56 million in Mecachrome, in equity and in debt, in exchange for a 100% equity interest in the Mecachrome upon its emergence from CCAA.