Oaktree Capital, the US distressed debt investor, has teamed up with Dubai International Capital, the owner of Almatis, in a bid to secure control of the heavily indebted German aluminium company through a restructuring of its debt.

DIC, which acquired Almatis for $1.2bn in November 2007, and the US buy-out fund on Thursday announced they would work together on a restructuring proposal to underwrite a capital injection and cut the company’s roughly $1bn debt load.