21 Sep 2009 15:21

BTA Bank submits plan for restructuring, recapitalizing debt

ALMATY. Sept 21 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan's BTA Bank has submitted its plan for restructuring and recapitalizing external debt to the Agency for Financial Supervision, the bank told Interfax.

"We met the deadline. The restructuring plan was submitted to the AFS on Friday," a bank representative said.

The document was originally scheduled to be submitted on August 3, but bank management requested and received an extension until September 18.

BTA Bank agreed the basic options for restructuring foreign debt with creditors on September 3. The restructuring options that were drawn up apply to principal and accumulated interest.

As reported by the bank, the four options are: "A Cash Buy back option for a maximum cash amount of $1 billion with an 82.25% discount; A Medium-term roll over option with a 60% discount; A Subordinated Long-term par roll over option accounting for Tier 2 capital; and A Debt to Equity swap option with a 80% discount."

In addition, under all options creditors would receive recovery notes, which would allow the creditor to participate in BTA's asset recovery strategy.

It was reported earlier that BTA has an estimated $13 billion in foreign debt. It must repay about $3 billion this year.

The national welfare fund Samruk-Kazyna acquired 75.1% of shares in BTA last February as part of anti-crisis measures to support the bank.

BTA Bank was the sixth biggest CIS bank by assets and the biggest Kazakh bank according to the Interfax-1000 rankings.