A Chinese bank has put forward a written offer for investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort, a German magazine reports, without citing sources. Manager magazine said there is a plan codenamed “Brasil” to merge Dresdner Bank’s retail banking business with that of Deutsche Postbank, and a plan codenamed “Chiemsee” to sell of Dresdner Kleinwort, to a Chinese bank. If the two plans failed, Allianz would try to forge an alliance between Dresdner and Commerzbank, the magazine said. Meanwhile, a German newspaper says China sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp is in “intensive talks” to buy the whole of Dresdner Bank. Chinese banks have been prowling around Europe: China Minsheng Banking Corp said earlier this month it would buy more overseas rivals, in particular in Europe, and Bank of China said earlier this week it intended to actively pursue overseas acquisitions this year.

Clear Channel Communications has won a ruling from a Texas state court that may help it force banks to provide financing necessary to complete a $20 billion buyout of the radio operator. The private equity firms Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H Lee Partners filed lawsuits in New York and Texas against Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Wachovia. Clear Channel joined in the Texas lawsuit. The banks were to provide more than $22 billion of financing for the transaction, but balked after capital markets deteriorated and asked that the terms be changed. The New York Times says the buyers got a misfired e-mail message last July about the lenders’ plan to renege on terms of the lending agreements. That’s July, 2007 — the private equity party was winding down but the hangover had not yet hit, and the banks had reaffirmed their commitment to financing the deal just two months before. What could they have been talking about since then?

Staying with the courts, Bear Stearns asked a court for an injunction to prevent five former employees from using client lists in their new jobs. The bank asked the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan to force the former employees to return client lists or papers they had taken and to prevent them from contacting Bear Stearns’ clients for the purpose of taking their business to their new employers, UBS and Morgan Stanley.

ConAgra Foods said it would sell its commodity trading and merchandising operations for $2.1 billion in cash and debt to the Ospraie Special Opportunities fund. ConAgra gets $1.6 billion in cash and $525 million in payment-in-kind securities of a newly holding company. The commodity trading and merchandising business, a vestige of ConAgra’s roots as a commodity-based company, has helped support ConAgra’s profits for several quarters while other parts of the business have suffered, but has also been a source of volatility.

Deals of the day:

* South Korea’s top lender, Kookmin Bank, said it will sell its 14 percent stake in Bank International Indonesia to Malayan Banking, which had offered to pay a hefty premium.

* Shares in Australian property maintenance company Programmed Maintenance Services rose 32 percent after industrial services company Spotless Group launched a cash and stock takeover offer valuing Programmed at A$556 million ($510 million).

* Bangkok Bank, Thailand’s biggest lender, said it was still negotiating with China’s ICBC about the sale of its 19.3 percent stake in ACL Bank.

* India’s Tata Motors said it was confident its $2.3 billion deal to buy Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford should improve its balance sheet in the long term.

* Erste Bank shares soar 7 percent after it sells its insurance operations to Vienna Insurance Group for 1.4 billion euros ($2.21 billion).

* German mobile phone and Internet service provider Freenet AG said it is in talks with Debitel’s private equity owner, Permira, to acquire the smaller rival in a deal that a German magazine said could be worth 1.4-1.5 billion euros ($2.2-$2.4 billion).

* Frontier Financial said it will not raise the offer price for Washington Banking, which it agreed to acquire last September for about $21.40 per share in a cash and stock deal.

* Singapore oil services firm KS Energy said it has secured a $175 million deal to rent out an offshore rig to an oil exploration firm for up to four years, confirming an earlier Reuters report.

* Interserve Consortium wins 225 million pound Tunbridge Wells hospital scheme.