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Vinashin creditors to meet tomorrow

Vinashin creditors to meet tomorrow

Hanoi: Creditors of a US$600m, eight-year loan for Vietnam's troubled state shipbuilder Vinashin will meet tomorrow to discuss a request for a standstill from the near-bankrupt conglomerate, Basis Point reported on Friday.
The creditor group would be led by Elliott Advisors and Standard Chartered Bank, sources told Basis Point, a Thomson Reuters company.
State media quoted Vinashin chairman Nguyen Ngoc Su as telling a news conference on November 19: "We have met with contacts at the creditor, had a discussion, and asked that the debt be delayed by one year so that we can start to repay it in December 2011."
The $600 million loan, with Credit Suisse as sole bookrunner, was signed in 2007 and has a 3.5-year grace period which ends on December 20. The facility repays in equal installments every six months thereafter until maturity in June 2015.
The loan paid a top-level all-in of 154 basis points in general syndication via a margin of 150 basis points over Libor. That pricing was considered generous at the time compared to the Vietnam sovereign CDS levels, which were trading at 65 basis point, Basis Point reported.
At least 20 other banks and institutional investors joined the loan, largely because of a letter of support from the Vietnamese government, which helped the borrower obtain the same ratings as the sovereign, Basis Point said. [06/12/10]