Talks regarding the restructuring of Punch Taverns are to continue after the company’s remaining bondholders voted in favour of waiving covenants that would otherwise have placed the company in default.
Last month, Punch announced that the waiver requests had been approved by eleven of the sixteen meetings held. No quorum was present at the five remaining meetings, which were accordingly adjourned until today.
At the meetings held today, noteholders voted in favour of the waiver requests. All other securitisation creditors have also consented to the waiver requests.
The covenant waivers will expire at the latest on 29 August 2014, and it is a condition of the waivers that a restructuring is launched by 30 June.
“We’re very much at the end game of restructuring,” Billingham told M&C Report last month. “That’s where we need to be.”
At the time, he expressed confidence that Punch’s covenant waiver requests will win the support required from all 16 debt tranches along with other stakeholders, and restructuring will be launched by the 30 June deadline set as a condition of the waiver.
“The senior creditors in the form of the ABI [Association of British Insurers] committee have come out in favour already of the [waiver] proposal; the juniors will come along as well. My view is it will go through, and at the same time that is happening, negotiations continue about a restructuring deal. Everyone wants to seal the deal. No one wants to see Punch end up insolvent, so a deal will get done.”
Asked if he expects that a restructure will take place very near the 30 June deadline, Billingham said: “I’m sure it will be. Nothing we’ve got involved in with this has happened early!”
