January 30 (SeeNews) - The commercial court in Zagreb has upheld a proposal of the extraordinary administration of Croatia's ailing concern Agrokor to divide creditors into groups ahead of a vote on a debt settlement plan, Agrokor said.
"The sorting of creditors and defining of groups is based on the records of claims filed and the differences in the legal position of each of the groups," Agrokor said in a statement on its website.
The creditors' council will have five members, and will be made up of creditors of the food-to-retail concern with verified claims.
"The difference between the new creditors' council compared to the previous interim creditors' council is that the majority of supplier claims are now within one group, while the unsecured, mostly financial creditors are divided into two groups based on the different economic interests of their claims", Agrokor explained.
The extraordinary commissioner of Agrokor has proposed to assign the creditors to five groups: A, B, C, D and E depending on the various legal and economic positions of each of the groups.
Group A consists of creditors whose claims bear secured rights, i.e. secured creditors, and corresponds to the secured creditors group in the interim creditors' council.
Group B is made up of creditors who are holders of bonds issued by the debtor and corresponds to the bondholder group in the interim creditors' council.
Group C is comprised of creditors whose claims have been secured by issued guarantees, co-debtorships and recourse debtorships from not less than five companies related and/or subsidiary to the debtor which are subject to the extraordinary administration proceedings and have participated in financing the debtor with seniority rights in recovery of up to 1.06 billion euro ($1.3 billion) dated June 8, 2017.
Creditors whose claims are secured by issued guarantees, co-debtorships and recourse debtorships of not less than five companies related and/or subsidiary to the debtor, which are subject to the extraordinary administration procedure and have not participated in financing the debtor with seniority rights in recovery of up to 1.06 billion euro dated June 8, 2017 shall be assigned to Group D.
Groups C and D correspond to the group of unsecured creditors in the interim creditors' council and are differentiated by various economic interests, given that Group C is party to the Super Priority Term Facility Agreement (SPFA).
Group E will be comprised of creditors to the benefit of which no guarantees have been issued nor is there a co-debtorship or recourse debtorship. It combines the groups of large and small suppliers from the interim creditors' council and also includes other creditors meeting the said criteria.
In December, Agrokor's extraordinary management unveiled a settlement plan under which the creditors and suppliers of the troubled concern will take full control of a new holding company and its units, to which the assets of the sound segments of the Agrokor group will be transferred.
The settlement proposal must be submitted to the Commercial Court in Zagreb by April 10, 2018 at the latest. The settlement plan is first voted on by the creditors, while the final confirmation rests with the Commercial Court in Zagreb.
Earlier this month, the Zagreb Commercial Court recognised claims of the concern's creditors, previously stated by Agrokor's extraordinary administration, in the amount of 41.45 billion kuna ($6.8 billion/5.6 billion euro).
The court rejected claims worth 16.43 billion kuna, while creditors mutually contested each other's claims in the amount of over 10.4 billion kuna.
(1 euro=7.42306 kuna)