WARSAW (Dow Jones)--Orco Property Group (ORC.FR), a Paris-listed Central European property developer under bankruptcy protection, in a move that's likely to upset the company's creditors and bondholders, transferred a batch of company warrants to its top executives in November that may be worth up to EUR60 million if a bond restructuring plan is approved at a meeting Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
The person added that Orco's board of directors approved the bonus, paid in the form of warrants, on Nov 18. As part of the deal, Orco transferred 1.475 million warrants to its executives.
If converted into shares with the Orco stock price at its current level, the warrants could generate up to EUR60 million for Orco's executives, with Orco Chief Executive Jean-Francois Ott entitled to some 80% of the warrants, the person said.
Orco wasn't available to comment on the matter.
The Paris commercial court gave Orco protection from creditors in March of this year, extending it in October until March 2010.
Earlier in December, Orco called a meeting of bondholders for Wednesday to propose amendments to the terms of the bonds and warrants that, according to the company, would result in a maximum capital increase of EUR183 million and a maximum reduction of bond indebtedness of EUR234 million.
Under the company's proposal, bonds due in 2010 and 2014 would be redeemed at their full principal amount, while the redemption price will be used as the subscription price for the shares to be issued to investors who exercise the company's warrants due in 2012 and 2014.
Orco earlier this year had to terminate talks with Colony Capital on an equity injection after the initial rejection of a different version of the bond restructuring plan by the majority of almost 73% of bondholders.
Sources representing around one-third of bondholders said Tuesday the terms of the new restructuring plan continue to be unsatisfactory. The bondholders on Monday filed documents to the Paris commercial court, seen by Dow Jones Newswires, saying the plan may give unfair advantages to certain groups of creditors at the expense of others.
In the filing, representatives of bondholders holding around a third of all the bonds issued by Orco said the restructuring process violates the rule of fair and equal treatment of bondholders, is not transparent and is aimed at giving unfair advantage to only some categories of bondholders, like company executives and other individuals with access to inside information.
In the court filing, the bondholders said the restructuring plan, as presented by the company, would not serve the interest of the company as a whole.
Company Web site: http://www.orcogroup.com
-By Marcin Sobczyk, Dow Jones Newswires; +4822 447-2432; marcin.sobczyk@dowjones.com
