United Group, a private equity-owned cable company, is in exclusive talks to buy Vivacom, Bulgaria’s largest telecoms group, according to people familiar with the situation, the Financial Times reported. The company, owned by BC Partners, is nearing a deal for Vivacom, which went up for sale in July, the people said. Buyout firm KKR also owns a minority stake in United Group. Vivacom was expected to be valued at about €1.2bn based on recent deals in the region for telecom assets, people involved in the sale said.

Commodities trader Trafigura has joined a group of lenders to provide a $1 billion loan backed by future oil sales to Chinese independent refiner, Shandong Qingyuan, in a deal which underscores the opening up of China to trading houses, Reuters reported. Chinese banks have scaled down lending due to an economic slowdown, creating an opportunity for trading houses to step in, just as they had after the 2008-2009 financial crisis when risk appetite fell as bank regulation increased.

The Dutch government plans tax cuts and extra investment next year, setting aside some of its usual fiscal prudence in a response to the threat of a regional economic slowdown, the Financial Times reported. Wopke Hoekstra, the Netherlands’ finance minister, announced €3bn of tax cuts for households and outlined plans for an investment fund as part of annual budget proposals. However, cuts in corporate tax rates will be halted. Mr Hoekstra said the plans were designed to protect the country’s “robust” economic growth.

Iceberg Research, the short seller that targeted commodities trader Noble Group Ltd., has another trading house in its sights: Trafigura Group Ltd. Trafigura is overstating the value of debt securities related to its 49.5% stake in Porto Sudeste, an iron ore export terminal in Brazil, Iceberg, headed by Arnaud Vagner, said Wednesday in a report on its website, Bloomberg News reported. Iceberg estimates those securities may be worth only a 10th of the $490 million carrying value that Trafigura attributes to them.

Trafigura Group Ltd. will take control of Nyrstar NV, Europe’s biggest zinc smelter, as part of a deal to restructure the struggling company’s debt and steer it away from bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. Under the agreement, Trafigura -- Nyrstar’s main shareholder as well as a top supplier, customer and financier -- offered a package of its own debt securities to Nyrstar’s creditors in exchange for them writing off debt.

A group of bondholders of construction conglomerate Odebrecht SA proposed on Monday the restructuring of $3 billion in bonds requiring new collateral and a cash infusion to allow a four-year extension on maturities. In a proposal publicized by the bondholders advisers, Rothschild & Co and law firms Davis Polk and Pinheiro Neto, bondholders require payment with no discount from the bonds’ face value.

Creditors of Odebrecht SA’s engineering and construction division holding more than $1 billion of the Brazilian company’s bonds said they have proposed a debt restructuring, including a four-year extension of maturity, Bloomberg News reported. Odebrecht hasn’t responded yet to the proposal, which was presented on Wednesday, the creditor group said in a statement. The company was said in December to be running out of collateral it can pledge to creditors of its scandal-plagued construction unit.

Royal Dutch Shell, which is on trial in Italy over alleged corruption stemming from a $1.3 billion oil deal in Nigeria, now appears likely to face legal proceedings over the same issue in its home country, the Netherlands, the International New York Times reported. Shell said on Friday that the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office had warned that it was preparing to prosecute the giant oil company “for criminal charges directly or indirectly related” to a Nigerian oil deal that occurred in 2011.

The Dutch government has taken a shareholding in Air France-KLM in an attempt to protect the country’s economic interests in the carrier, escalating tensions between Paris and The Hague, the Financial Times reported. Wopke Hoekstra, Netherlands’ finance minister, announced that his government had acquired a 12.68 per cent stake in the Air France-KLM holding group in recent weeks and will aim to build a shareholding equal to the French state at 14.3 per cent.

The 2007 takeover of the Dutch parts of Yukos Oil by Russian state oil company Rosneft’s former subsidiary Promneftstroy was illegal, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upholding an earlier lower appeals court ruling. Yukos Oil went bankrupt in 2006 after its former chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, fell out with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Russian government began demanding billions in back taxes, Reuters reported. Most of Yukos’ assets were absorbed by the Kremlin’s flagship oil producer Rosneft, and its former owners have for years been trying to recover their possessions.