The Abu Dhabi-based contractor Al Jaber Group yesterday confirmed that it had completed a protracted debt restructuring with its lenders after entering into negotiations almost four years ago.
“The announcement in June was for the beginning of the deal to show that we were about to refinance,” said Imad Najjar, the corporate communications director for Al Jaber. “Now the deal has been finalised.”
Al Jaber, which is involved in some of the capital’s biggest projects including work at Saadiyat Island and Masdar City, revealed in June that it was in the process of concluding the debt restructuring deal.
The company, which is one of Abu Dhabi’s oldest family-owned conglomerates, did not reveal the amount of debt which it had restructured.
However, according to data from Bloomberg, Al Jaber has agreed to restructure unsecured debts of about US$4 billion with coordinators Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, HSBC Bank Middle East, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Royal Bank of Scotland and Union National Bank, which are due to mature in 2018.
Al Jaber is one of the biggest industrial groups in the UAE, employing more than 50,000 people. Like many UAE firms that were overextended with debt, it got into financial trouble in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, and in 2010 it was unable to meet some repayment terms on loans.
The negotiations were complicated by the existence of different types of debt – secured and unsecured – which increased the overall liabilities of the group.
There were also big losses related to foreign currency hedging transactions, especially relating to the Japanese yen, which fluctuated significantly at the time of the earthquake in Japan in 2011, soon after restructuring talks began.
Despite its continued debt negotiations, Al Jaber has won a number of recent high-profile contracts including a deal with Saadiyat Investment & Development to build the Dh1.77bn Hidd Al Saadiyat villa development in July last year.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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