Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian billionaire who owns Greece’s Wind Hellas Telecommunications, said that the mobile operator will miss ?40.5m (US$50m) of debt payments due in the next two weeks.
Wind had already undergone a lengthy restructuring process last…
Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian billionaire who owns Greece’s Wind Hellas Telecommunications, said that the mobile operator will miss ?40.5m (US$50m) of debt payments due in the next two weeks.
Wind had already undergone a lengthy restructuring process last year.
Sawiris pleaded with creditors not to push Wind into default as it seeks to reorganise borrowings for the second time in seven months. He claimed that Wind’s performance has been adversely affected by the Greek economic crisis and the austerity package that the government has imposed.
More cash may be put into the Athens-based company “depending on the outcome of negotiations with creditors,” Sawiris said to Bloomberg.
The company faces ?17.5m (US$21.5m) payment on its ?250m revolving-credit facility maturing June 2012, according to Standard & Poor’s. It must also make a ?23m (US$28.3m) coupon payment on ?1.2bn (US$1.5bn) of floating- rate notes due October 2012 on July 15.
Wind, owned by the holding company of Sawiris, Weather Investments, is talking to creditors about its debt structure. The company has retained Morgan Stanley, White & Case and Karatzas & Partners to advise it on its discussions with creditors
Last year, Weather won a battle to keep control of the debt-laden telecom firm, beating off a rival restructuring bid from a group of subordinated bondholders. Wind Hellas ran out of cash after launching a price war in Greece’s saturated mobile phone market, losing customers to market leader Cosmote, a unit of Greek telephone group OTE. Deutsche Telekom owns 30% of OTE.
Standard & Poor’s downgraded the company three steps to CC earlier this month.
S&P was the last of the major ratings firms to downgrade Wind Hellas. The company’s debt was cut by Fitch Ratings on June 17 to C, one step above default status. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its assessment last week to Caa3, nine levels below investment grade and three steps from default.
“I think a restructuring is not probable at this point, but I’m not ruling it out,” said Sawiris, who also controls Orascom Telecom.
