hang on there.
CIT Said to Be in Talks to Amend $29 Billion SwapOct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- CIT Group Inc., the 101-year-old commercial lender seeking to avoid collapse, is in talks with some bondholders to amend terms of its $29 billion debt exchange, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks come less than a week after Moody’s Investors Service said New York-based CIT may need to liquidate if too few investors agree to either the swap or a prepackaged bankruptcy. Credit rating firm Egan-Jones Ratings Co. recommends bondholders reject the offer, which was unveiled Oct. 1 and expires in two weeks. CIT said two days ago that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek plans to resign at yearend.
Changes may also be made to the prepackaged-bankruptcy plan that investors were asked to approve if the debt swap doesn’t work, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
“Given our expectation for the exchange to fail, they would have to amend it to avoid bankruptcy,” Adam Steer, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. in New York said yesterday.
Curt Ritter, a CIT spokesman, declined to comment. CIT is seeking to reduce debt by at least $5.7 billion after being locked out of the unsecured debt markets it relies on for funding and posting nine quarters of losses totaling more than $5 billion.
Restructuring PlansUnder the out-of-court restructuring, bondholders will receive 70 cents to 90 cents on the dollar in the form of new debt, plus 94 percent of the equity in the company, CIT said Oct. 2 in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
With the prepackaged bankruptcy plan, bondholders would receive 70 cents on the dollar in the form of new 7 percent notes, plus 83.4 percent of equity in the reorganized company, according to an Oct. 8 report from CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. This excludes most unsecured notes maturing after 2018, which are left in place, CRT said.
The exchange offer expires at 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 29, according to the filing.
CIT shares rose 12 cents, or 11.3 percent, to $1.18 on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares, which traded as high as $61.36 in February 2007, have dropped 74 percent this year.
Bond prices for CIT show that investors increasingly expect the company will be forced to file for bankruptcy as part of any restructuring.
‘Little Hope’While CIT’s $500 million of 4.125 percent notes due Nov. 3 rose 0.5 cent to 70 cents on the dollar today, they have fallen 10 cents since the exchange was announced, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
“After digging through the details of the exchange offer and subsequent liquidity plans, we believe CIT’s plan has very little hope of succeeding,” CreditSights analysts Steer, David Hendler and Jesse Rosenthal wrote in an Oct. 4 report.
CIT may receive a loan of as much as $6 billion from bondholders that helped provide $3 billion of rescue financing in July, one of the people said. The funds are intended to finance a prepackaged bankruptcy if the out-of-court exchange fails to gain enough support, another person familiar with the matter said this month.
CIT, which has $42.8 billion in bonds and loans outstanding, funds about 1 million businesses from Dunkin’ Brands Inc. in Canton, Massachusetts, to Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc., the bankrupt clothing chain in Bellevue, Washington. The company says it’s the third-largest U.S. railcar-leasing firm and the world’s third-biggest aircraft financier.
Pimco, BaupostA collapse would ripple across the “small and medium-sized businesses who rely on the finance company to operate -- to pay their vendors, ship goods to their customers and make their payroll,” CIT said in internal documents obtained by Bloomberg News in July that make the case for its importance to the U.S. economy.
Peek turned to the group of six debt holders after failing to win access to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, which backs bonds from financial companies.
Pacific Investment Management Co. and Baupost Group LLC resigned more than a month ago from a steering committee that had to approve the restructuring plan. The remaining creditors on the committee are Centerbridge Partners LP, Oaktree Capital Management LLC, Capital Research & Management Co. and Silver Point Capital LP.
The lender may be unable to create a “long-term, viable” source of funding even if the debt swap succeeds, Moody’s said in its Oct. 8 report.
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Klinkt herkenbaar zeker nu...... De waarschuwingen liepen in dit geval ver vooruit.
Life-line......... hard to believe.