PRESS: Utair creditors plan no collateral, debt recovery

MOSCOW, Feb 12 (PRIME) – Banks-creditors of troubled Russian airline Utair have no plans to recover their collateral and debts from it, Vedomosti business daily reported on Tuesday quoting a presentation of the carrier prepared for a February 7 meeting with representatives of creditors.

In December 2018, Utair defaulted on about 1 billion rubles of interest on one of two syndicated loans totaling 39.1 billion rubles. Besides the syndicate of 11 banks, the carrier also owns 17.4 billion rubles to Sberbank, the business daily said.

On February 8, a syndicate of 11 banks voted on whether they would demand an early redemption of the two loans, direct debiting of the interest or levy execution on collateral. Three largest creditors – Sberbank, National Bank Trust, and Bank Rossiya, which control over 75% of the debt, voted against levying execution on collateral, Vedomosti reported quoting sources and the airline’s presentation.

“The banks were rational about it. The airline acts in good faith, and the creditors will protect their interests better if they work out a solution jointly with the company,” a source close to the air carrier told the business daily.

A representative of Bank Trust said that the votes were yet to be summarized. Sberbank declined to comment and representatives of all other banks did not respond to Vedomosti.

(65.6517 rubles – U.S. $1)

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