Over 850 individual holders of bonds issued by financially troubled Polish debt collector GetBack SA formed an alliance that will represent their interests during debt restructuring negotiations with the company, Rzeczpospolita reported May 28.
The alliance put forward its candidate to GetBack's creditors council, which will be elected by June 5, and would also like to include its representative in the company's supervisory board, but this could be difficult to achieve, the newspaper noted.
The bondholders group said it is not satisfied with GetBack's restructuring proposalas it puts the entire restructuring burden on bondholders, which had no influence over the operational decisions of the company's management bodies and main shareholder Abris Capital Partners. The alliance also questioned debt reduction proposed in GetBack's restructuring plan, as well as the debt repayment calendar, under which 65.36% of the debt collector's unsecured loans and bonds would be redeemed by the end of 2025.
The bondholders demand the principal amount of the debt to be repaid in full in the shortest possible time, but they are ready to accept an interest haircut, with repayments spread over time. The alliance is also in general against the proposed conversion of 34.64% of the company's unsecured debt into shares, arguing that the proposed issue price of 8.63 zlotys per share is too high, and should be closer to 0.05 zlotys apiece, taking into the account the company's 2017 estimated net loss of 1.2 billion zlotys.
The group wants to present its proposal to GetBack's management and hopes for "constructive cooperation" on the matter. "Our goal is to gather bondholders representing over 30% of GetBack's total debt and it seems that we are able to achieve this threshold in coalition with other bondholder groups," the newspaper cited the alliance's representatives as saying.
As of May 28, US$1 was equivalent to 3.70 Polish zlotys.
