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Winding Up — Ardagh packages Europe’s second co-op
9fin team
•5 min read
Winding Up is 9fin's weekly newsletter, incorporating summaries and commentary from our European distressed coverage for the past week. Find out more about what we do for distressed here.
Greetings again from the Big Apple! This week 9fin has met with restructuring practitioners in New York to get a taste of what’s to come in Europe. The restructuring market in Europe is like America’s little brother — companies are learning how to be more aggressive with liability management exercises and creditors are learning how to defend themselves with co-op agreements.
It’s been a struggle to mimic historically due to the cultural differences, the practitioners said. Europeans tend to try to avoid being antagonistic in order to maintain relationships in a comparatively smaller market to the US. However the tides are changing with more and more US style transactions appearing in Europe.
Altice France creditors were the first to adopt a co-op agreement in order to fight back against the company’s planned discounted transactions. This week 9fin reported on the second case in Europe with a crossholder group of Ardagh’s bondholders signing a co-op agreement as it engages in talks with the company on how to deal with its maturities after 2026.
Over in France, beleaguered software company Atos has suffered another blow as its shareholder One Point along with Butler Industries and Econocom have walked away from negotiations over its rescue plan. The group’s 2029 notes have been quoted 6.7 points lower since the start of the week and are quoted at 13.9-mid, according to 9fin’s data.
On the bright side, R-Logitech has managed to narrowly avoid insolvency by receiving 95% consent from bondholders to its negotiated restructuring deal by its maturity date on Monday (24 June). It was also able to repay its mezzanine facility by the same date from the proceeds of the sale of a portion of its shares in Thaumas N.V. to its co-shareholders in Thaumas, PMV and SFPIM.
Interestingly in the Dutch press, bike producer Accell’s CEO Tjeerd Jegen said in an interview that the recall of its cargo bikes, Babboe, over safety concerns would set the company back around €50m. Babboe made up around 5% of Accell’s turnover, Jegen said — around €75m. The CEO also put some numbers to Accell’s overstocking crisis: at FY 23, the company had 78 warehouses full of assembled bikes, versus its normal 25, resulting in an extra €20m of rental costs.
This week’s news
Ardagh — Advisors to certain senior creditors of Ardagh Grouphave started confidential talks with the metal and glass packaging conglomerate on ways to address an upcoming debt wall. A group of holders weighted to near-dated maturities is considering options including extending debt due in 2026 and positioning the group for any potential discounted exchanges on longer-dated debt maturities.
Intrum — After last weeks restructuring proposal, the debt purchaser and servicer looks set to be the subject of an imminent CDS credit event trigger attempt. Intrum's announcement happened to come on the same day a bunch of CDS contracts referencing Intrum debt expired. That had some holders of the CDS poring over the terms of the proposal for any sign of a credit event trigger, according to one buysider 9fin spoke with.
Consolis — The French building material supplier is in the process of implementing its restructuring plan. This came out of the blue for most creditors outside of the ad hoc group (AHG), who were unaware that a deal was being put together until the company’s press release on 4 May 2024. For full details read our Restructuring QuickTake here.
Vivion Investments — The property companyannounced on Tuesday that it has signed a new £123m (€146m) five-year loan secured against its nine Hilton hotels in the UK, paving the way for a cash redemption of its €168.9m 3% 2024 stub SUNs.
Huws Gray — The building materials maker hit triple C this week after another round of poor earnings for Q1 24, with EBITDA down around 40% and revenues around 10% YoY. Huws Gray announced Q1 24 reported EBITDA of £13m and LTM March 24 reported EBITDA of £74m, sources said. LTM adjusted EBITDA was £92m.
Alternative investment manager Cheyne Capital has hired Dan Magee as managing director in London, head of origination and trading, sources close to the situation told 9fin. Magee spent six years at Credit Suisse as a senior trader in its special situations team, where he originated and structured private lending transactions and traded stressed and distressed credit. He started his career as a lawyer at Allen & Overy focusing on leveraged lending, corporate restructurings and insolvency.
Reena Gogna is joining Paul Hastings’ finance practice as a partner in London. Gogna was previously at Weil Gotshal for almost a decade. She represents a wide range of top-tier financial institutions and direct lenders in connection with banking and finance matters, including leveraged finance, senior debt and high-yield financings, debt restructurings, and refinancings.
