(A correction was made to a quote in the sixth paragraph).

Saudi Arabia’s Ahmad Hamad Al-Gosaibi and Brothers (AHAB) hasn't signed any new lenders in the kingdom to the debt settlement plan it agreed with two of its banking creditors in April, a senior official involved in the company’s restructuring said on Thursday.

The family conglomerate defaulted on around 22 billion Saudi riyals ($5.9 billion) of debt in 2009 and while Reuters reported earlier this year that two Saudi Arabian-linked banks had agreed to a restructuring plan, many other banks and financial institutions with links to the company have refused, arguing the terms on offer were not satisfactory.

“No more Saudi banks have joined that process. I will not name the ones that did,” Simon Charlton, AHAB's chief restructuring officer and acting chief executive, said during an on-stage interview at the Corporate Restructuring Summit in Dubai on Thursday.

Charlton said that currently 71 percent of the company's creditors have signed up to the settlement. AHAB is exposed to 94 creditor institutions, including eleven banks which are mostly owned by Saudi Arabia shareholders, according to Reuters.

“In the last of couple of weeks the bankruptcy law has come into full effect and we are now looking at how we can use this new law,” he added. The kingdom approved its first bankruptcy law in February.

“It has been ten years, we are not finished yet. I think it will be tragic to our efforts... and the effort of the government, if certain sides were to prefer themselves.”

“It is time to move on,” he added.

AHAB estimated its assets at between 4.2 billion and 5.2 billion riyals, a company spokesman told Reuters in April 2014.

(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Shane McGinley)
(yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here.

© ZAWYA 2018