The proprietor of Torraspapel achieves new liquidity with the purpose of closing its recapitalization in April | Companies | EUROtoday

Lecta, one of many predominant paper producers in Europe and proprietor of the historic Torraspapel, hopes to shut its restructuring on the finish of subsequent April and, as well as, has managed to get its collectors to permit it to defer the cost of the corresponding curiosity on its debt for about 9 million euros, because the agency has communicated to the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

The closing of the settlement is conditional on compliance with the relevant regulatory and antitrust approvals, so there should be as much as three months left for the restructuring to take impact. After months of negotiation, on January 2, the corporate closed an settlement with its predominant shareholders and collectors – the principle ones are the identical, the non-public fairness Apollo, Cheyne and Tikehau—which is able to enable a discount of 400 million euros of its debt.

Lecta has now achieved a brand new liquidity increase, by not having to pay the curiosity for the six months led to December on the bonds it launched in 2024, for round 320 million and which mature inside two years, nor on the road of credit score for greater than 100 million euros renewed within the aforementioned yr. This bull will enable it to save lots of round 9 million euros that may serve to assist the group’s liquidity.

The unspent cash shall be added to the 20 million euros of liquidity supplied by its principals. stakeholders (shareholders and collectors). This will provide you with time to efficiently attain the date when the recapitalization takes impact.

Lecta has accomplished a reorganization of its companies into 4 items – fantastic paper, self-adhesives, distribution and specialties – and has requested judicial safety for Condat SAS, proprietor of the Condat paper mill (France) final October, after it recorded a unfavorable ebitda of 15 million euros in 2024. Lecta is on the lookout for potential consumers for its enterprise, whereas briefly freezing its money owed, whereas encapsulating the unfavorable impact of this subsidiary in its accounts.

This restructuring happens in a context of structural decline in demand for paper on a world scale, which has led the group to speed up its restructuring course of to strengthen its steadiness sheet and enhance its liquidity place. In any case, Lecta has been within the eye of the storm since its failed IPO in 2017. CVC, which at the moment managed the capital, handed over the keys to Lecta to the bondholders in 2019, who capitalized greater than 60% of the almost 600 million euros of listed debt that they managed. Following this operation, the Apollo, Cheyne and Tikehau funds remained the principle shareholders, and refinanced the corporate in 2023.

CVC landed in Torraspapel in 1999, owned till that yr by the Kuwaiti group KIO, to incorporate it within the Lecta conglomerate, which already included the Italian Cartiere Garda and the French Smurfit Condat at the moment. For it, it disbursed 312 million euros to the Kuwaiti group KIO, and assumed debt for an additional 264 million: Torraspapel treasures 300 years of historical past. It is likely one of the main producers within the Iberian Peninsula within the manufacture and distribution of coated and uncoated chemical pulp paper, in addition to a variety of particular papers.

The Lecta group, based mostly in Luxembourg, has seven factories situated in Spain, France and Italy. The Spanish ones are situated in Leitza, Motril and Almazán. A pulp manufacturing plant can also be built-in into the latter. Between them, they’ve an industrial capability of shut to 2 million tons.