United Arab Emirates

Towards the end of last year, it was announced that the UAE’s long anticipated reform of the insolvency reform bill was reaching its final stages prior to implementation, Emirates 24/7 reported. The legal framework was drawn up following the establishment of the Dubai World Tribunal that resulted from its inability to pay its creditors in November 2009. The case cast spotlight on the UAE, which until today does not have an officially passed insolvency bill that helps local businesses as well as international investors.

Dubai government-owned property developer Limitless has secured the agreement of 85 percent of its creditors for a three-month extension to a debt repayment due at the end of 2014 and for a proposed restructuring plan, its chairman said, Reuters reported. Limitless is looking to obtain the support of 100 percent of creditors to the extension and restructuring plan for its $1.2 billion debt, Ali Rashid Lootah told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.

State-owned conglomerate Dubai World edged closer to a second major restructuring in four years on Monday after announcing it had reached agreement with a "substantial majority" of creditors to back its $14.6 billion debt deal, Reuters reported. However, despite having enough backing to effectively prevent challenges to its new deal, a relatively untested court process to impose it will mean formal completion is still months away.

Limitless, a Dubai government-related real estate developer, has asked for a three-month extension to talks with creditors after failing to secure a new restructuring deal on its $1.2 billion debt pile, four banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. The company, which has already restructured the debt once before after falling victim to the emirate's property crash at the end of the last decade, has been in talks with creditors for nearly a year on a new deal. It had hoped to secure new terms before a $400 million payment came due on Dec. 31 but no deal was reached.

A Dubai-based venture half-owned by commodities trader Vitol SA has hired more than 10 ex-OW Bunker employees in China, showing how swiftly merchants are filling the vacuum left by the former top marine fuel supplier, China-based traders said on Friday, Reuters reported. The hiring spree by Cockett Marine Oil follows a similar move by Swiss trader, Mercuria, who has scooped up close to 20 ex-OW Bunker employees in South Korea and Japan.

Dubai World, the government-owned conglomerate, is set to use provisions of the emirate’s special bankruptcy law to ensure an orderly process in the restructuring of US$15 billion of debts, The National reported. A meeting of international bank creditors in London this week gave majority approval to the new refinancing scheme, which has been under discussion since April. Voters representing two-thirds of the total value of loans supported the plan.

Dubai's Limitless will pledge its future revenues to service debt repayments as it attempts a second restructuring of a $1.2 billion Islamic loan which banking sources said should be completed ahead of a December deadline, Reuters reported. The state-owned property firm is on track to restructure the debt by the end of the year, when a payment worth a third of the total comes due, two sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Dubai, one of seven principalities that make up the United Arab Emirates, has only minimal oil reserves. Instead, the city-state has positioned itself as the hinge connecting Asia to the rest of the world, the gateway city for the fast-growing frontier markets of Africa and a safe haven for investors shunning an arc of conflict that stretches from Libya to Afghanistan, Bloomberg News reported.

The chairman of Dubai’s biggest developer has welcomed a softening in real estate prices in the emirate after two years of hyperbolic growth, the Financial Times reported. In a rare public acknowledgment of the slowdown in the emirate’s property market, Mohammed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, said he was optimistic about longer-term demand despite a cooling off in market activity. “2013 was crazy as supply was limited,” he said.

Dubai World has secured agreement from more than 60 percent of its creditors to reschedule its debt repayments, a top government executive told Reuters, putting it close to the two-thirds assent needed to change the existing terms. Dubai borrowed heavily during a boom period in the middle of the last decade, but then the global financial crisis and a local real estate crash in 2008 precipitated a number of restructurings at state-linked companies. These included Dubai World.