By Sarah Young
LONDON (Reuters) – The creditor group offering Britain’s Thames Water a 1.5 billion pound ($1.95 billion) funding lifeline urged others to back its plan on Monday, a week before a participation deadline.
Britain’s biggest water supplier has been on the brink of collapse since March, when its equity investors refused to pump in new cash, putting the government on standby for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime.
The creditor group, seeking to ensure Thames Water’s survival for at least another year, offered it a new initial 1.5 billion pound debt facility, plus a possible further 1.5 billion pounds, to which the company agreed in late October.
This is a key step for Thames Water to reach a broader debt restructuring ahead of an equity raise and recapitalisation. But the deal needs 75% of all classes of debt to approve it, with a first court hearing scheduled for Dec. 17.
The group confirmed in a statement that its coordinating committee included Abrdn, Apollo Global Management, Elliott Investment Management, Invesco, M&G and PIMCO.
“The coordinating committee of the creditor group has called on as many creditors as possible to support the company’s turnaround and restructuring efforts, and to consider participation in the new money facility,” it said.
A rival group of so-called B note investors which has proposed an alternative liquidity package, criticised the agreed deal as being “an extremely costly short-term loan”.
The group behind the agreed deal represents more than 12 billion pounds of class A debt and is made up of more than 100 institutions, it added in the statement.
($1 = 0.7715 pounds)
(Reporting by Sarah Young; Additional reporting by Andres Gonzalez; Editing by Alexander Smith)
