Clubmarket’s creditor banks have agreed to waive a further ILS20m (US$4.2m) of the sums owed to them by the collapsed supermarket chain, reports the Haaretz newspaper.
The banks and the unsecured creditors – mostly small suppliers, owed most of Clubmarket’s debts – are in the final stages of preparing a creditors’ arrangement, to be submitted to Tel Aviv District Court today (Wednesday), the paper said.
Under the draft agreement, the banks, despite their secured creditor status, are in essence acceding to the suppliers’ demands to take on more of the risk in the event that the debt demand increases or the amount available to pay the creditors shrinks. One of the major risks involves the tax authority’s insistence that it be paid tens of millions of shekels as part of the creditor arrangement.
The banks will forgo more of their debt on the understanding that the suppliers will get no more than 53% of what they are owed, while the banks will get no less than 81%.
Meanwhile, the former owners of Clubmarket are in an advanced stage of negotiations with representatives of the suppliers. According to this agreement, not yet inked, the former owners will transfer ILS15m to the creditors in return for their renouncing the right to make any claims against the Mozes-Borovich-Rosen families in the future.
However, some suppliers argue that this money should not be part of the creditors’ agreement and are increasing their monetary demands. This is apparently the reason the parties have not turned to the courts.
