November 24 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian fuel retailer Petrol [BUL:5PET] said on Thursday it increased the coupon interest rate in its earlier proposal to extend the maturity date of a 100 million euro ($106.3 million) bond issue due 2017.
Last week, Petrol said that it will propose to extend to January 26, 2022 the maturity date of the bonds, of which 18.7 million euro of bonds are outstanding, and to cut the bonds' annual coupon interest rate from 8.375% to 5.5% per annum as of January 26, 2017.
On Thursday, Petrol said that at a meeting of bondholders scheduled for December 9 in London, the company will propose gradual annual increase of the coupon interest rate on the bonds starting from 5.5% in the first year of extension and ending at 8% in the last year before maturity date, the company said in a bourse filing with the London Stock Exchange.
Petrol also said it plans to replace its subsidiary Naftex Petrol with its fully owned arm Elit Petrol - Lovech as guarantor of the bond issue.
To be accepted, the proposal needs to be backed by no less than 75% of the bondholders.
Petrol posted a consolidated net loss of 10.5 million levs ($5.7 million/5.4 million euro) in the first half of 2016, compared to a loss of 100.1 million levs in the like period of last year.