The Hindu Business Line : Process to rejig Haldia Petro's debt begins

THE debt restructuring process of the joint venture Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) has been set off with the corporate debt restructuring cell holding its first meeting earlier this week.

Sources told Business Line that an interim response will be sent very soon to the clarifications sought by the lenders consortium from the company. "The detailed response is likely to be sent in 10 days," they said, adding that the clarifications mainly pertain to certain terms used in the proposal which the lenders felt were ambiguous.

While there were three top management personnel from HPL, the lenders' team which participated at the meeting was large - about 80 in all, according to sources.

However, contrary to earlier expectations, the zero date for the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) process has not been fixed as some technicalities are involved. Under the RBI's CDR process, a time-bound mechanism would be operational from the zero date and the entire exercise would have to be then completed within ninety days.

As per the proposal submitted by HPL, whose bottomline continues to sag under the weight of liabilities of over Rs 4,500 crore, the company has sought an interest waiver of about Rs 430 crore, besides conversion of Rs 300 crore of debt into zero-coupon bonds as well as reduction of interest rates to the prevailing rate of eight per cent.

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