Hexion Specialty Chemicals, which is owned by buy-out firm Apollo Management, agreed yesterday to toss in another $540m in equity capital to fund its $6.5bn take-over of Huntsman, after being forced by a court last week to employ its best efforts to consummate the deal.

Apollo's move to make the takeover less debt-heavy, and so potentially more palatable to risk-averse lenders, now shifts a greater portion of the responsibility for the deal's closure towards Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.