WARSAW, Poland – Aug. 10, 2015 – Greenberg Traurig advised Bank Pekao S.A., one of the largest creditors of PBG S.A. in its bankruptcy with composition in the course of a rehabilitation process that took more than three years to be finalized. This court-supervised restructuring of PBG’s debt is the largest such procedure in Poland’s history, the aggregate value of receivables of PBG’s creditors exceeding PLN 3.2 billion.
On 31 July 2015, PBG signed a restructuring agreement with its financial creditors, pursuant to which the parties agreed, among other things, on the manner of reduction and repayment of PBG’s indebtedness, the conversion of part of the debt into PBG shares, the terms of the issue of bonds, and the establishment of security interests upon PBG assets (including a pledge on Rafako S.A. shares), which are to guarantee the success of the composition scheme.
The Agreement contained the creditors’ undertaking to vote for the agreed composition proposals submitted to the court during the creditors’ assembly held between 3 and 5 August 2015. The majority of creditors, representing the required proportion of the whole indebtedness, supported the composition. As a result, once the composition is no longer subject to appeal, which will occur on 25 August 2015, PBG will proceed to implement the timeline of debt repayments (the last installment covered by the arrangement is to be paid by PBG on or before 30 June 2020).
On behalf of the Greenberg Traurig's Warsaw office, the transaction was supervised by Partner Andrzej Wysokiński. He was assisted by Local Partner Radosław Gronet, Senior Associate Antoni Libiszowski, and Associate Magda Bachleda-Księdzularz.
PBG provides comprehensive specialist services as a contractor for natural gas, crude oil and liquid fuels projects. With regard to fuels it acts as a contractor on projects consisting both in the construction of new facilities as well as the modernization of existing warehouse depots and with ancillary infrastructure.
The PBG restructuring was one the most complex transactions on the Polish market, combining various diverse elements of bankruptcy law, securities, and bonds trading laws.