Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy

More than 10 years since defaulting on their dollar bonds, Argentina’s Sociedad Comercial del Plata (SCP) has been given court approval to submit an offer to creditors giving them more than 80% of the company, it says in a stock market filing. The holding company founded by the Soldati family, which had a 2004 bankruptcy protection agreement overturned on appeal in 2006, plans to submit two alternatives to holders of what local press reports say is $260m in bonds. A meeting is expected in the next 60 days, where investors could choose to approve one of two options. In the first, investors would get the value of the bond debt in shares, minus a 40% haircut. The second option is a new 8-year peso-denominated bond, also at an amount equal to a 40% haircut, paying interest at 1% stepping up to 5% in the seventh year. The Soldati family now holds 22% of the company, and would be left with less than 5%, according to local press reports. SCP is an entity whose holdings include the Parque de la Costa theme park and train, half of the casino in Tigre and 19% of oil company CGC. It has $700m in debt, including $260m in bonds and the remainder in bank loans, the press reports say. It defaulted in 1999 and filed for bankruptcy in 2000, and then had the bankruptcy approved in 2004 and be overturned in 2006. The bonds trade in the low teens, according to a trader.

Grupo Papelero Scribe’s outlook has been downgraded to negative by Moody’s. According to the ratings agency, the change to the outlook for Scribe’s Ba3 corporate rating reflects Moody’s expectation that Scribe will continue to face operating pressures as a result of import competition and pulp price volatility. In 2010, Scribe reported Ebitda of MXP696m with an Ebitda margin of 11.8%, down substantially from 2009’s margin of 18.2% due to higher pulp prices.