Eurotunnel’s executive chairman has signalled a new openness to alternatives to the restructuring plan announced last week.
Jacques Gounon yesterday said he was open to improvements to the plan and intended to talk to bankers drawing up two separate proposals.
However, he attacked the holders of the lowest tiers of Eurotunnel’s debt – known as the bondholders – whose rejection of last week’s plan is one of the most serious obstacles to the implementation of the deal.
In an interview with Les Echos, the Financial Times’s French sister paper, Mr Gounon said he had exchanged letters with Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, which is drawing up an alternative plan on behalf of holders of the £1.9bn ($3.5bn) lowest tiers of Eurotunnel’s £6.18bn debt.
Mr Ackermann had promised that his bankers would provide Eurotunnel with information on its plan. Mr Gounon had also agreed to meet Citigroup after being contacted by the US investment bank about a proposal it was drawing up.
However, it emerged last night that Citigroup has now dropped these plans but remains keen to talk to Eurotunnel’s management and other creditor groups.
In a stinging attack on hedge funds among the bondholders, Mr Gounon suggested their manoeuvres might be designed to delay a deal so that they received extra interest payments.
