TriPolyta to delay response to bondholders' complaint

05 February 2002 05:06  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (CNI)--Indonesian polypropylene (PP) producer TriPolyta has asked the District Court of New York for more time to respond to a breach of contract complaint filed by holders of its bonds worth $185m (Euro215m).

As a result, the court has deferred to the end of next week its ruling on the complaint, a source told CNI's sister publication ACN.

This is the second deferment the court has granted. A ruling was first expected on 24 January but this was delayed to 30 January. It is unclear what the reason was for the first deferment.

Neither TriPolyta nor the bondholders were available for comment.

The bondholders originally began their legal action on 12 October 2001 by requesting the District Court of New York to order TriPolyta to pay $253.57m for the bonds.

TriPolyta responded with an offer to buy back all of the bonds and their accrued interest for $42.5m. This offer was rejected by the bondholders as being too low.

Earlier this month, TriPolyta presented a revised offer to the bondholders, offering to buy back all the bonds and accrued interest for $50m. The bondholders again rejected the offer as being too low.

Following the bondholders' rejection of the revised offer, the bondholders filed a notice in the District Court of New York on 15 January seeking a 'summary judgement' on their 'breach of contract' complaint against the company.

Negotiations between the bondholders and TriPolyta have since been temporarily suspended as there is still a wide gap between the two sides.

However, with the help of its consultant, the company is still trying to come up with alternatives which may be more acceptable to the bondholders.

If the court rules in favour of the bondholders, it could seek the foreclosure of TriPolyta's assets, including its three PP plants in Merak, West Java, Indonesia, which have a combined capacity of 360 000 tonne/year.

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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