UPDATE: Russia’s Mechel, Sberbank may agree on debt restructuring

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MOSCOW, Oct 22 (PRIME) -- Russia’s debt-ridden metals and mining group Mechel and biggest bank Sberbank may coordinate debt restructuring, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told reporters on Thursday.

“Who wants to make direct concessions? The process of coordinating conditions with banks is always difficult, especially today, when recoverability of a large number banking credits is questionable, so it is always difficult. I think they will come to an agreement,” he said.

Sberbank does not plan to cancel its suits against the company, but may strike a restructuring deal until the end of 2015, the bank’s First Deputy CEO Maxim Poletayev told reporters.

“About Mechel, I can say that we do not stop our suits, but there is a strong confidence growing deep inside me that we will agree until the end of the year,” he said. “Since this is only confidence and not conviction, we do not stop the suits now. They remain as a kind of a guarantee that a fragile compromise that we’ve found between banks and Mechel does not fall apart.”

Sberbank is the Mechel’s third major creditor. The company has already signed restructuring deals with two other creditors – Gazprombank and VTB Bank.

As of late June, Mechel owed about U.S. $2.3 billion to Gazprombank, $1.8 billion to VTB Bank and $1.3 billion to Sberbank.

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