The Proprietatea Fund requesting the insolvency of World Trade Center

The Proprietatea Fund has requested the opening of the insolvency proceedings against World Trade Center Bucureşti (WTCB), in which it holds a stake of 19.9%, in order to collect on a receivable. Mircea Ursache, the president of the WTC said: "The action of the Proprietatea Fund is intended to solve the situation of a historic debt that WTCB owes to the Romanian state, amounting to 41 million Euros. This debt originates from a syndicated loan, taken between 1992-199 from three French banks (Credit Lyonnais, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale), for which they requested a sovereign guarantee from the Romanian state".

In service of the debt of WTCB, the state paid the equivalent in lei of more than 110 million dollars, which means that WTCB owes a debt to the Romanian state, Mr. Ursache added. Since it was unable to pay its debt in full, WTCB still owes the equivalent in lei of about 41 million Euros. Between 2006-2007, the government has transferred the ownership of its claim against WTCB to the Proprietatea Fund.

The chairman of the WTCB told us that the Proprietatea Fund has requested the restructuring and the resolution of this debt through judicial reorganization. Other solutions for the payment of that debt would be the sale of the receivable, the selling of some of the company"s assets to extinguish the debt or the conversion into stock, by increasing the share capital of the company. The new shares would be issued in favor of the Romanian state, according to the law, Mircea Ursache stressed.

Capital market sources claim that the Proprietatea Fund favors the idea of a debt-to-equity swap, which would increase its stake in WTCB.

WTCB was incorporated in 1994, as a Romanian-French joint company, in which the Romanian party held 55%. WTCB currently owns the Pullman hotel (formerly Sofitel), a conference center, an office building and a commercial gallery. In order to extinguish the aforementioned debt, the company may choose to sell the office building, which has a surface of 11,000 sqm.