trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/sxvslz02qmw3fx-c0iqsww2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Report: Funds, investment firms expressed interest in GetBack

Podcast

Street Talk Episode 87

Blog

A New Dawn for European Bank M&A Top 5 Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US banks' loan growth; record share buybacks; utility M&A outlook

Blog

Banking Essentials Newsletter 2021: December Edition


Report: Funds, investment firms expressed interest in GetBack

Former GetBack SA head Konrad Kakolewski sent a letter to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority with a list of companies potentially interested in investing in the financially troubled debt collector, Parkiet reported June 2.

The list enclosed in the letter includes large funds and investment companies that were reportedly interested in investing in the company at the time of Kakolewski's dismissal from the CEO post, namely Apax Partners LLP, Elliot Advisors Ltd., Advent International Corp., Fortress Investment Group LLC, Pacific Investment Management Co. LLC, Alchemy Partners LLP, York Capital and Trace Capital. Oakbridge Capital Advisors served as an intermediary in the process of identifying potential buyers for GetBack.

Negotiations with some of the potential investors named in Kakolewski's letter took place, but no investment declarations were made, Parkiet added in a separate June 5 report. Apax is not looking to invest into GetBack, according to its spokesman, while talks with Advent were discontinued at a very initial stage. Private equity investment firm Cornerstone Partners reportedly acted as an intermediary in negotiations with PIMCO, but they also broke down at an initial phase and PIMCO never directly participated in the talks, according to Parkiet.

The letter was also sent to Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Internal Affairs Minister Joachim Brudzinski, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau's head Ernest Bejda, as well as Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland's ruling party PiS, Parkiet noted.

Kakolewski also said in the letter that since the beginning of its operations in 2012 until April 2018, when he was dismissed from the CEO post, the company had never received any objections from its auditors regarding the correctness and reliability of its financial reports.

The FSA recently pointed to irregularities in the debt collector's financial reports, uncovering transactions that reportedly helped the company avoid making impairments on its assets. According to GetBack's unaudited financial report, the company eyes an estimated net loss of 1.33 billion Polish zlotys for 2017, compared with the previously estimated loss of 1.2 billion zlotys.

GetBack recently secured a court decision to launch debt restructuring under accelerated arrangement proceedings. Under its 2.72 billion zlotys restructuring proposal, the company wants to repurchase 65.36% of its bonds by the end of 2025, while the remaining part of its unsecured debt would be converted into equity.

As of June 4, US$1 was equivalent to 3.67 Polish zlotys.