GlobeSt.com reported earlier that LA-based Oaktree Capital Management and Pacific Capital Group has joined with Canada's Onex Corp. in a proposal to buy Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp., the nation's second largest theater chain. Management at New York-based Loews supports the plan: Its bankruptcy filing on Thursday was aimed at smoothing the way for the acquisition to be completed.

But separately, California-based Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. is confirming that Oaktree Capital is among a group of investors that has agreed to make an undisclosed but "significant" investment in Edwards, which filed for bankruptcy last summer. Oaktree Capital is being joined by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Edwards Theatres is California's largest theater chain. Like Loews, it has closed several of its movie houses over the past several months and--also like Loews--is saddled with hundreds of millions in debt stemming from an industrywide building binge that lasted through the last half of the 1990s.