Limitless debt deal held up by minority creditors
DUBAI, November 20, 2015
A minority of creditors are resisting attempts by Dubai government-owned property developer Limitless to seal a restructuring on around Dh1.9 billion ($517 million) in bank debt, three banking sources said.
The company needs complete creditor approval in order to push through any deal, with the absence of an agreement raising uncertainty about its future prospects at a time of weakness in the United Arab Emirates' property market.
In June, the company said it had won the approval of almost 90 per cent of banks to a repayment plan involving Dh1.9 billion of bank debt. In return, Limitless is asking its 18 creditor banks to agree to extend the term of its debt by two years to December 2018.
Limitless, which has projects in countries including Vietnam and Russia, said in June its total outstanding bank debt was Dh4.45 billion.
Gaining the approval of the final dissenting creditors for the restructuring has proven tricky.
US hedge fund Silver Point Capital and Saudi Arabian lender Arab National Bank are among creditors that have so far not agreed to the plan, according to two of the banking sources.
One of their concerns involved a pool of assets creditors had been holding as security for Limitless's debt, including land and partly-built real estate projects in the United Arab Emirates, one of the sources said.
The company wanted some of the assets to be released from the pool in order to help boost its revenue, a move a minority of creditors were against, the same source said.
A spokeswoman for Limitless said private discussions were continuing but she declined to elaborate. Nobody was immediately available to comment from Silver Point Capital and Arab National Bank.
The six-member creditor committee is made up of Arab National Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, Mashreq, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Silver Point Capital.
The developer has been seeking to follow the example of Dubai World, another state-controlled company which owned Limitless until January 2013 when the government separated the two.
In March, Dubai World won approval to end court proceedings related to its $14.6 billion debt restructuring deal that was signed in the wake of the financial crisis. That paved the way for Dubai World to push through a deal outside of court. - Reuters
