GCL nears resolution of its $500m senior notes headache

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Cross-defaulting Chinese polysilicon manufacturer GCL-Poly hopes a court process in Bermuda will rubber-stamp a proposed swap of senior notes, to reorganize the company's debts, next month.

GCL has been in cross default since $500 million of three-year senior notes failed to be settled upon maturity at the end of January. The company stated, in early February, the holders of almost 92% of the debt had signaled their intent to agree to swap their investments for new three-year notes and the company is now awaiting confirmation of that in the court of Bermuda, where the company is registered for tax reasons.

The manufacturer last week said it expects a directions hearing related to the debt restructure to be heard on the island nation on Thursday, with creditors set to sign up to the plan on June 4. If that progresses as expected, GCL said, it anticipates the debt restructure being signed off on June 11.

GCL has said it is conducting an investigation into a RMB510 million ($78.8 million) pre-payment to a contractor in September 2019 in connection with a silicon manufacturing project which never took shape. Auditor Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has held up the solar company's 2020 annual accounts over the payment.

The poly maker on Friday announced the latest solar project sell-off by its GCL New Energy developer operation. In the latest, third phase of an agreement with state-owned Guangdong Jinyuan New Energy Co Ltd and State Power Investment Corp Guizhou Jinyuan Weining Energy Co Ltd, GCL will sell five Chinese solar farms with a total generation capacity of 183 MW to the public bodies. The company estimates it will make a net gain of RMB50 million on the book value of the projects, which it expects to generate a net RMB660 million ($102 million), as well as removing a further RMB1.63 billion ($252 million) of liabilities from its books.

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