Dubai World wants eight years to pay debts

* username: rupertbu

DUBAI WORLD, the troubled Gulf investment fund that owns the QE2 cruise liner and Cirque du Soleil dance troupe, is to ask its creditors for up to eight more years to pay back a $22 billion (£15 billion) debt mountain.

The crisis-hit investment empire, owned by the Dubai state, will promise its lenders it will be able to pay back all the money it owes if it can get the extension.

The debt restructuring proposals will be put to a seven-strong committee of the group’s senior creditors in Dubai this week.