Mechel OAOis seeking to restructure its 17, 18, and 19 series of ruble bonds with a nominalvalue of 15 billion Russian rubles, equivalent to US$228 million, Bloomberg Newsreported May 5, citing a company statement.

The Russian coal and steel group is proposing changes to thecurrent payment schedule and the order of determining the coupon rate for futureperiods for all three series of bonds.

This comes after the company signed settlement deals and secured court approval for therestructuring of its debt to Sberbank, totaling about 30 billion rubles and US$427million.

Shareholders of Mechel are set to vote on the measures May 26as the company is still trying to restructure US$1 billion in debt from a syndicateof international banks, according to the newswire.

VTB Capital AO, Gazprombank and Svyaz-Bank AKB PAO will be actingas the company's restructuring agents.

As of May 4, US$1 was equivalentto 66.25 Russian rubles.