Winding Up — The numbers tell the story; setting the advisor record straight

9fin team

3 May 2024•4 min read

This week has been a busy week for 2023 earnings, with Pfleiderer, Isabel Marant, Lowell and Vivion all reporting.

France is still the hot-bed of distressed activity. Restructuring proposals for Atos are due today, after the company announced at the start of the week that the French state plans to acquire strategic assets, and Altice France’s board has hired White & Case as more creditors jump on the co-op bandwagon.

Over in Germany Kloeckner Pentaplast has had to dispel rumours that it has hired advisors to tackle its 2026 maturities and clarified that it plans to pursue a regular refinancing. We take a look at the sponsor Strategic Value Partners options in an analysis piece.

This week’s news

Altice France — The French telco’s board has hired White & Case as its legal counsel as its creditors prepare themselves for the company’s plan on discounted transactions to reduce its leverage, two sources familiar with the matter told 9fin. The advisory appointments come as certain holders holders of Altice France’s secured and unsecured debt are in talks to sign a co-op agreement.

Ardagh — A group of bondholders who own Ardagh Group unsecured notes and ARD Finance PIK notes has migrated to work with Akin Gump and held pitches for a financial advisor after one of the largest such holders Franklin Resources leaned in that direction, according to 9fin sources.

Atos — The French cybersecurity and software firm, has significantly revised its business plan, just three weeks after providing an initial restructuring outline to investors. The new plan reflects worsened market conditions and clients’ weariness about the debt restructuring process and envisages another €350m of interim financing, and an additional €500m of new money to bolster amounts previously requested.

Kloeckner Pentaplast — the plastic packaging company owned by SVP responded to “misreporting”, about the company hiring refinancing advisors, on 29 April to say it “is planning a regular refinancing of its debt”. 9fin followed this up with an analysis of the company’s refinancing prospects later in the week.

Lowell — The management team at the UK-based debt purchaser said during an investor call on Tuesday (30 April) that the company would seek to refinance its debt this year, supported by its expedited ABS programme and the a “strong” business performance in 2023. The group posted cash income of £363m for the quarter ended 31 December 2023, up from £231m in the same period last year. Cash EBITDA was £250m, up from £132m year-over-year.

Pfleiderer — The German-based wood products manufacturer expects leverage to peak at the back end of this year, according to management on Monday’s (29 April) Q4 23 and Q1 24 conference call. Management said refinancing discussions are not top of the agenda given the “comfortable runway” for its bond maturities, which are due in April 2026.

SBB — the Swedish property landlord continues to swerve a deal with bondholders in favour of carving out parts of its property portfolio into private and publicly-listed JVs. The latest transaction sees it contribute properties in exchange for shares in newly listed subsidiary PPI, the value of which are at a considerable discount to book value for the properties.

Vivion — the German real estate landlord released Q4 23 earnings on 2 May, during which CFO Ella Zucker revealed plans to deal with the company’s upcoming €168m stub SUNs. Plan A is to raise new secured debt against its UK property portfolio, failing which cash at its German subsidiary may be used but we caution it is not a bulletproof backup.

Isabel Marant — The French luxury fashion group seen wholesale orders in the fall/winter 2024 (FW24) season plummet a steep 30% versus FW23, to €55.3m. This sets the stressed credit up for a tough 2024 with management finding it “difficult to be very optimistic” on its Q4 23 conference call this week.