Saudi Arabia began to compensate shareholders in Saudi Integrated Telecom Co (SITC) for their stakes in the ailing firm on Wednesday, a statement on the Ministry of Finance website said. Last week, a royal decree declared that investors in SITC - excluding founding shareholders - would receive 30 riyals ($8) per share for their stakes in the company, a 23 percent premium on the stock's last traded price of 24.35 riyals. A lawyer for SITC's minority shareholders had told Reuters he expected it would take a few months for his clients to receive their money.

Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Co. invited creditors including BNP Paribas SA (BNP) and Standard Chartered Plc to discuss claims on $5.9 billion of debt as it seeks to recover from the Middle East’s biggest default, Bloomberg News reported. The Saudi Arabian company, with interests ranging from construction to finance, will “outline proposals aimed at achieving a comprehensive settlement” with more than 70 creditors at a May 7 meeting in Dubai, according to a copy of an invitation sent to banks yesterday and seen by Bloomberg News.

Dubai has received a financial boost thanks to an agreement to refinance at preferential rates $20bn of bonds and loans owed to the central bank of the United Arab Emirates and its capital, Abu Dhabi, the Financial Times reported. The Gulf’s commercial hub, which has an overall debt load of about $130bn, said it extended the maturities for five years at interest rates of one per cent, below the four per cent agreed in 2009 when the UAE came to Dubai’s rescue.

Dubai’s global financial crisis-induced slump, followed by a less dramatic, but equally sharp, recovery make for a compelling story. The endless flow of positive news in the desert emirate culminated late last year in Dubai winning the hosting rights for World Expo 2020, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. But the smart people at Bank of America Merrill Lynch are a little more sober in their analysis of Dubai’s rebound. Afterall, there’s still some pretty significant financial hurdles for the city’s government-related entities to clear.

State-owned investment firm Dubai Group announced its long-awaited $10 billion debt restructuring deal with creditors late on Thursday. While all bankers and advisors who took part in the often acrimonious negotiations breathed a sigh of relief, most of them are also aware that Dubai’s debt problems aren’t quite a thing of the past yet, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported.

Zim, the Haifa-based container shipping line, said it had agreed a debt restructuring deal in which its owner, Israel Corp, will hand control of two-thirds of the box carrier to creditors and pave the way for its own planned demerger, the Financial Times reported. Under the deal, announced on Thursday, bondholders, shareholders, overseas banks and shipowners will swap some of Zim’s $3bn in debt for shares.

Dubai Group LLC, an investment company owned by the emirate’s ruler, said it reached a final agreement with lenders on $6 billion in debt restructuring after three years of talks, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders agreed to extend the maturity for secured debt to December 2016, and for partially secured and unsecured loans to December 2024, Dubai Group said in an e-mailed statement today. A further $4 billion of “related party debt has been subordinated to the claims of the bank creditors,” it said.

Dubai Group has signed a $10 billion debt restructuring deal, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, marking the end of a perilous period which saw the emirate risk collapse under a mountain of debt obligations, Reuters reported. The unit of Dubai Holding, the investment vehicle of Dubai's ruler, was one of a number of state-linked entities which borrowed heavily from banks to fund an acquisitions spree during the boom years of 2006-08.

The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) has strengthened its insolvency regime to enhance certainty in the financial landscape in a bid to woo more foreign investments, a move that would also see the advent of a new breed of Qatar-based insolvency practitioners. This has been made possible with the QFC Authority (QFCA) amending its insolvency legislation as part of modernising the financial infrastructure of the country.

Nakheel, the Dubai government-owned developer that restructured $16 billion of debt three years ago after being hit by a sharp drop in local real estate prices, is now aiming to pay back much of those borrowings early and eventually become debt-free as property prices climb again, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. The company will pre-pay 4 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($1.09 billion) of bank loans originally set to mature next September, chairman Ali Rashid Lootah said on Saturday.