Sberbank may reschedule portion of Mechel debt repayment to 2020 - Vedomosti
MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Sberbank of Russia is considering the possibility of rescheduling repayment of a portion of debt owed by Mechel to 2020, the newspaper Vedomosti reported on Thursday, citing several sources.
Mechel would have to repay 31.5 billion rubles in principal and 3.3 billion rubles in penalties to Sberbank immediately, after which the terms of the restructuring of the main portion of the debt (59.8 billion rubles at current exchange rates) will come into force. They stipulate repayment of 5 billion rubles in 2016, 7 billion rubles in 2017, and repayment of the remaining 47.8 billion rubles by 2020, one of Vedomosti's source said.
Another source said that under the agreements, 34.8 billion rubles will go to repay dollar-denominated debt to Sberbank (Mechel reported $677.98 million in dollar-denominated debt and $583.2 million in ruble-denominated debt as of the beginning of the year); the remainder will not be converted into rubles.
If Mechel repays a portion of debt to Sberbank, it will receive clearance to reschedule repayment of principal owed to two other major creditors: Gazprombank and VTB . Mechel has yet to meet that condition, one of the Vedomosti sources said.
Sberbank had for a long time been the sole major creditor that had not agreed to restructure Mechel debt; Igor Zyuzin's coal and steel group already has debt restructuring agreements with two other state-controlled banks, VTB and Gazprombank.
Mechel's debt totaled $6.178 billion as of December 10, of which the three big state banks held 66%. Total debt has declined 4.3% since September.