Zawya Dow Jones/Dubai
UK lender HSBC Holdings has stepped down as chair of the committee that is overseeing the $2.2bn restructuring of Drydocks World, a move that may complicate the implementation of the ship-building and repair company’s debt plan, two people familiar with the matter said.
Drydocks’ $2.2bn restructuring was approved in the middle of last year by almost all of its creditors but the company had to resort to a special court in Dubai to push the restructuring proposals through.
HSBC until recently headed the so-called coordinating committee of the lenders most exposed to Drydocks, which also includes lenders Mashreq, Standard Chartered, Lloyds TSB, ING and DBS.
“For HSBC this is quite a step to walk away from the co-comm,” said one of the two people familiar with the matter. “The remaining banks consulted each other how to fill the void but the decision was not to appoint a new chair for now and to handle the tasks among them,” the person said. “It doesn’t make things any easier.”
It wasn’t immediately clear why HSBC left the committee and the bank declined to comment.
“As the restructuring has been finalised, there cannot be any impact of HSBC’s departure as chair on the same,” Drydocks said in an emailed statement to Zawya Dow Jones yesterday.
Even though Drydocks’ debt repayment terms were approved last year, the banks in the co-ordinating committee are still responsible for, among other things, approving credit lines as part of the company’s restructuring, one person said. Drydocks, a subsidiary of government-owned Dubai World, started talks with its lenders in 2010 after the global financial downturn made it impossible for the company to repay debts related to the acquisition of its Asian operations in 2007.