By Haris Anvar www.businessweek.com
National Central Cooling Co., the United Arab Emirates-based refrigeration company, said the board will this month consider “alternatives” to annual payments on 1.7 billion dirhams ($463 million) of Islamic bonds.
Board members will meet on April 25, it said in a statement to the Dubai bourse today, without providing details. The company, known as Tabreed, said March 8 it is seeking approval from shareholders to renegotiate terms on a $200 million floating-rate note and the local currency-denominated convertible sukuk maturing in 2011.
Tabreed is among Gulf Arab companies seeking to restructure debt after the global economic crisis dried up financing and brought a property boom to a halt. Dubai World, one the emirate’s three main state-owned holding companies, is negotiating with lenders to restructure $24.8 billion of debt after roiling global markets by proposing a freeze on loan repayments in November.
Tabreed, which provides cooling for facilities such as the Dubai Metro and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, posted a 1.12 billion- dirham loss last year after a profit of 73 million dirhams in 2008, the company said March 8.
The shares dropped 0.9 percent to 44.2 fils as of 10:06 a.m. in Dubai. Tabreed fell 45 percent this year, compared with a 2.9 percent decline in the benchmark DFM General Index.
–Editors: Shanthy Nambiar, Claudia Maedler
To contact the reporter on this story: Haris Anwar in Dubai at hanwar2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Maedler at cmaedler@bloomberg.net
