A $7 billion (£3.5 billion) structured investment vehicle (SIV) that was one of the first to suffer turbulence from the credit crunch was poised to be rescued last night after securing a bailout deal arranged by Goldman Sachs.

Goldman is to arrange a restructuring for the troubled SIV, now known as SIV Portfolio plc but formerly called Cheyne Finance and managed by Cheyne Capital, the hedge fund.

According to receivers at Deloitte & Touche, the rescue will involve creating a new investment vehicle. Then senior creditors will be offered the chance to sell part or all of their investment or to take a stake in the new entity.

Neville Kahn, one of the Deloitte receivers, said that presentations to creditors would take place in January. Mr Kahn said that the committee of senior creditors, who account for about $6.5 billion of the assets, had been overwhelmingly supportive of the bailout plan during extensive consultations held during recent weeks. Mezzanine or more junior creditors accounted for about $700 million of the assets, he said.

Mr Kahn said that final terms would establish the eventual size of losses that creditors would have to suffer. He said that Goldman Sachs would be investing in the restructuring, but the exact level would depend on how much other creditors decided to sell.

The Goldman-led rescue package is likely to be watched closely by other suffering SIVs. If it is successful, a bailout of an SIV portfolio would represent the first restructuring of a standalone investment vehicle. It would end months of uncertainty for investors, who saw the SIV encounter difficulties in August and fall into receivership in September. The Cheyne-managed vehicle was one of a number of SIVs to be hit by turbulent markets in the wake of America’s sub-prime mortgage meltdown. It went into receivership after being forced to draw on emergency funding lines when a seizure in the short-term funding markets left it unable to repay its maturing debt.

About $1.4 billion of its assets are in cash, with the remainder a combination of commercial paper, medium-term notes and subordinated debt securities.

The receiver said: “All parties continue to negotiate towards reaching a binding agreement and finalising documentation.”

SIVs, and their even riskier associates SIV-lites, were at the centre of August’s unfolding market turmoil. In the ensuing weeks and months, banks including HSBC, Citigroup and Standard Chartered have taken billions of dollars of their SIVs’ assets on to their own balance sheets.

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