{"id":136824,"date":"2021-08-26T07:16:49","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T07:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=136824"},"modified":"2021-08-26T07:16:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T07:16:49","slug":"creditors-file-winding-up-petition-for-air-seychelles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/markets\/creditors-file-winding-up-petition-for-air-seychelles\/","title":{"rendered":"Creditors file winding up petition for Air Seychelles"},"content":{"rendered":"
DUBAI, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Holders of around $70 million in troubled bonds issued on behalf of state-owned Air Seychelles have filed a petition to wind up the African airline, they said in a statement, after a standoff over the unpaid debt.<\/p>\n
The move is the latest effort by creditors to recover $1.2 billion owed by Abu Dhabi\u2019s Etihad Airways and airlines it partly owned when the debt was issued in 2015 and 2016, such as Air Seychelles.<\/p>\n
At the time, Etihad owned 40% of Air Seychelles and it was in a consortium along with the Gulf airline and other carriers that borrowed the money through special purpose vehicle EA Partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Noteholder Committee (acting on behalf of the EA Partners bondholders) … filed a petition dated 19 August 2021 for the winding-up of Air Seychelles, and on 24 August 2021, such petition was served on, and acknowledged by, Air Seychelles,\u201d the creditors said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year, Air Seychelles said it was struggling to honour its $71.5 million portion of the EA Partners debt and started restructuring talks with a steering committee of creditors in July.<\/p>\n
A Seychelles government official told Reuters in May that Air Seychelles wound not pay more than $20 million to settle the debt.<\/p>\n
The creditors said on Wednesday that they were still open to work with the government, the airline\u2019s sole shareholders, to reach a resolution to the debt challenges.<\/p>\n
But they said that there had been no \u201csubstantive engagement, nor any sense of urgency\u201d from either Air Seychelles or the government, leaving no choice but to file a petition for the winding up of the airline to recover the money due.<\/p>\n
Air Seychelles declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Etihad is not legally obliged to back the bonds as the original $1.2 billion deals envisaged each carrier paying off its own portion of the debt, according to the debt documentation reviewed by Reuters.<\/p>\n