Company
Plaza Centers N.V. is a Netherland incorporated company which develops, markets, manages, lets and sells shopping centres in emerging markets predominantly in Central and Eastern Europe.
Sector
The Company has dual listings on the Premium segment of Main Market in London, and the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Its major and controlling shareholder is a publicly quoted Israeli company whose shares are traded on both the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Global Market in the United States.
The Company operates in nine countries (Romania, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and India) with an asset portfolio running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Provision of Sponsor Services under the Listing Rules
Transaction
In late 2013 Plaza announced a debt restructuring programme and entered into negotiations with its bondholders, with whom it was in technical default.
The Board approached the creditors of the Company with a restructuring plan so a formalised restructuring process could be implemented.
Plaza filed for reorganisation proceedings with the District Court of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and submitted a restructuring plan enabling it to restructure its debt and resolve its immediate liquidity situation.
This was to be achieved through a deferral of principal payment obligations to creditors, adjustment to interest payments; early repayment of the bonds upon the realisation or refinancing of assets along with allocation to the representatives of the non-collateral backed debt options of 9.99% of the Company’s shares and a potential rights issue of €20 million to shareholders.
Why SPARK?
Lead Partner Mark Brady, and Neil Baldwin of SPARK’s Leeds based Financial Advisory team provided Sponsor services financial advisory advice to Plaza:
- Acted as Sponsor to Plaza in relation to the passporting of its Prospectus prepared under Dutch Law in line with the UKLA’s Listing Rules
- The preparation of a Circular underpinning the rights issue attached to the restructuring – with attendant actions
Outcome: Plaza successfully obtained shareholders approval for the restructuring proposals, and succeeded in raising €20m in its rights issue.
It has since managed to dispose of various property assets to repay Bond principal in line with its proposals.