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Court upholds decision on debt payment deferral for Baikal TsBK

The Baikal TsBK owes about 2.7 billion roubles to its 135 creditors

IRKUTSK, April 6 (Itar-Tass) — The Irkutsk Regional Court has upheld the decision on the deferral of the payment by the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill (TsBK) of a 150-million rouble debt to the owner of Basic Element Oleg Deripaska.

“On April 4, the Civil Division of the Irkutsk Regional Court considered a private complaint of OOO Starion (legal successor of the lender) and upheld the decision of the Slyudyansky District Court that earlier granted a deferral of thee debt payment until September 30, 2012,” the TsBK press service reported on Friday. Referring to the mill’s external administrator Alexander Ivanov, the press service also said that the Baikal TsBK leadership intends to take additional steps for further extending the debt payment term and for the debt restructuring.

On July 14, 2011, the Ust-Labinsk District Court of the Krasnodar Territory satisfied Oleg Deripaska’s claim to recover from the Baikal TsBK a debt worth about 150 million rouble on a loan issued to the mill in 2009 for the settlement of the wage debt to the mill workers who then threatened to block the Trans-Siberian Railway. At that time, the businessmen’s companies owned the Baikal TsBK. The external management of the mill offered Deripaska an amicable settlement agreement on the debt deferment, but the parties failed to agree, after which the businessman conceded the right to demand the debt repayment to OOO Starion. On January 31, 2012, the Baikal TsBK at the Slyudyansky District Court managed to get a positive decision on a suit, which, inter alia, stated that the immediate full debt payment would jeopardise heating supply to Baikalsk and the payment of taxes to the budgets of all levels.

The Baikal TsBK owes about 2.7 billion roubles to its 135 creditors. The main creditor is Alfa-Bank that currently controls the mill. The state (Federal Agency for State Property Management) holds 49 percent of shares of the pulp and paper mill in the south of Baikal, and 51 percent of its shares are held by the Kontinentalinvest investment company.