- How can be the recovery rate of bond issued twelve months ago only be 15% ? Where did the 21,5 mn EUR disappear ? In my opinion, MIFA was a fraudulent company for quite some time and was already insolvent when they issued the bonds.
MIFA BOND (ISIN DE000A1X25B5) – DISTRESSED DEBT & RESTRUCTURING “GERMAN STYLE”
I had covered the case of MIFA several times in the last few months (part 1, part 2, update, update 2).
Over the week end, finally some news emerged with details about the restructuring.
If I understood the filing correctly, the following will happen:
1. Existing shareholders will be diluted 1:100
2. Bondholders will accept a “haircut” of 60% plus the coupon wil be reduced to 1% (from 7,5%) and the maturity wil be extended to 2012 (from 2018)
3. Hero cycles wil inject (up to) 15mn EUR via a capital increase
4. Bondholders will get 10% of the new company for the 15 mn haircut and a subscription right for additional shares
2. Bondholders will accept a “haircut” of 60% plus the coupon wil be reduced to 1% (from 7,5%) and the maturity wil be extended to 2012 (from 2018)
3. Hero cycles wil inject (up to) 15mn EUR via a capital increase
4. Bondholders will get 10% of the new company for the 15 mn haircut and a subscription right for additional shares
Interestingly, the advisor nominated by the bondholders also made a press release. Some additional info from this release:
- the advisor estimated a recovery rate of only 15% for bondholders in the case of bancruptcy
– technically, bondholders will own 91% of MIFA equity before Hero cycle invests
– bondholders get subscriptions right and could, if they want to invest new money, own up to 30% of MIFA including those shares they get via the debt equity swap
– technically, bondholders will own 91% of MIFA equity before Hero cycle invests
– bondholders get subscriptions right and could, if they want to invest new money, own up to 30% of MIFA including those shares they get via the debt equity swap
As some details are still missing (price of new shares) etc., it is hard to correctly say how much the bonds are worth and if bondholders were treated fairly compared to Hero. However current prices at ~38% seem to imply most of the upside.
My 5 cents on this
For me, the following aspects of this whole episode are interesting:
- How can be the recovery rate of bond issued twelve months ago only be 15% ? Where did the 21,5 mn EUR disappear ? In my opinion, MIFA was a fraudulent company for quite some time and was already insolvent when they issued the bonds.
- Will there be any law suits by bondholders ? Why did Hero take the risk and didn’t wait for insolvency ? Are there any special provisions for Hero to back out if law suits come up ?
- “Senior bonds” under German law should not be treated and priced as senior bonds. As this example shows, one can “haircut” bond holders under German law (“Schuldverschreibungsgesetz”) without even going into bankruptcy procedures. German Bonds are much more similar to potentially perpetual, deeply subordinated bonds or “Genußschein” than a senior bond under international law. Any covenants written into the prospectus are worth nothing as it is so simple to just restructure the bonds.
- such a restructuring can be decided with only a small percentage of the bondholders. Only 28% of the MIFA bondholders were present when the advisor, who can commit to binding changes, was elected. So in theory, 14% of the bondholders can decide what happens to the remaining 86% of the bondholders with very little chance for any “hold outs”. Maybe Greece and Argentina should issue their future bonds simply under German law. Tha would make life much easier for them.
. why does the MIFA share (1% of the future company) trade at 80 cents or 6 mn EUR market cap ? Do shareholders think that the company is worth 600 mn EUR ? This is a clear “short zo zero” situation if one could actually borrow the shares
- one could argue that the restructuring makes sense because MIFA will be able to continue to operate and now jobs are lost. However I think it would be naive to believe that Hero will operate MIFA they way they worked before. Hero wants the brands and the distribution, not the production. I am pretty sure that they will not guarantee a lot of jobs.
- but at least, the order that existing equity gets wiped out before the senior bonds still holds, even under German law. I had some serious doubts about this.
The most important leasson: As I have written before, new corporate bonds under German law should be avoided at all cost. Especially the “Mittelstandsanleihen” are in prinicpal similar 20 EUR bills issued at 100 EUR with a tiny little option to recieve 100 EUR. The “lipstick on this pig” is the high coupon. But German investors seem to buy anything with a high coupon this days anyway. No surprise maybe if you have to pay for holding 2 year treasuries at the time of writing.
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