(Bloomberg) -- Distressed textile giant PT Pan Brothers is closing in on its debt restructuring after seven months of negotiation with creditors, according to people familiar with the matter, as it works to avoid becoming the second Indonesian clothesmaker to be declared bankrupt this year.
Creditors will vote Wednesday on the latest 8.6 trillion rupiah ($537 million) restructuring proposal by Pan Brothers, Bloomberg News reported earlier. It initially sought to take votes last month, but delayed the process after facing push-backs from some creditors including SC Lowy, as they demanded better terms, according to the people familiar who declined to be identified.
Key creditors including SC Lowy have given their verbal support for the latest plan, one of the people familiar said. If the votes pass on Wednesday, that could help Pan Brothers avert the fate of bankruptcy when the Indonesian government has vowed to save jobs in the struggling sector.
Among the key debt that the company is looking to settle are $171.1 million in outstanding principal on a dollar-denominated bond that will mature in December next year and $138.4 million syndicated facilities, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News. Under the revised proposal, bondholders are presented with an additional settlement option, which is to convert the existing notes with 7.625% coupon into entirely new ones with 15-year maturity at 1% annual interest, the document shows.
Pan Brothers didn’t respond to requests from Bloomberg News seeking comments. SC Lowy said in an emailed response that it’s successfully resolved all issues and is supportive of Pan Brothers’ debt plan.
The bondholders previously only had one option, which is to turn some part of the notes into new papers with 11-year maturity and and the rest into new mandatory convertible bonds, according to an exchange filing in November.
The revised proposal came after Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto summoned representatives of the company and SC Lowy’s chief investment officer Soo Cheon Lee, for a meeting on Dec. 5 in Jakarta, according to people familiar with the matter. Hartarto said at the meeting that the government doesn’t want to see job losses from the current debt problem and will not bail out Pan Brothers should it fall into bankruptcy, according to one of the people familiar.
Hartarto declined to comment. SC Lowy declined to comment on the meeting with the minister “as it was a confidential discussion.”
Pan Brothers, which has supplied Ralph Lauren, Prada, Uniqlo and Adidas, currently employs around 27,000 people. Textile and clothing-related industries are the second-biggest employers in Indonesia’s manufacturing sector after food, according to the country’s statistics bureau.
The government previously gave its assurance that there would be no layoffs after PT Sri Rejeki Isman, a rival of Pan Brothers, was declared bankrupt by an Indonesian court in October. It also allowed Sri Rejeki to resume import and export operations despite the bankruptcy verdict.
An open intervention by the government to prop up a non-state owned company rarely happens in Indonesia. Still, the recent meetings may give signal of the president’s unwillingness to see another major bankruptcy and layoffs in the early days on his administration.
“The government doesn’t want to see bankruptcy and layoffs in the textile sector as the negative impact could reverberate to the wider economy,” according to Teddy Hariyanto, senior credit analyst at PT Mandiri Sekuritas. “Significant layoffs in this sector will push up overall unemployment numbers and that could become political issue for the new government.”
--With assistance from Grace Sihombing and Pearl Liu.
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