by creemaster » Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:14 pm
Ultra Petroleum Corp. filed a revised restructuring plan that calls for the oil and gas driller to raise $2.4 billion in bankruptcy-exit financing. Court papers filed Wednesday say the proceeds of the new financing will be used to pay down $2.52 billion of senior bonds and revolver drawings in full and in cash. The proposed exit facility will include a $600 million term loan, a $400 million revolving credit facility and a $1.4 billion bridge loan, which may be converted to an unsecured term loan. Barclays Bank PLC has agreed to arrange the financing, court papers say. Ultra has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston to review the financing agreement next week as well as its request to keep the fees associated with the facility shielded from public view.Also up for court review next week is an outline of Ultra’s restructuring plan, which the company revised to include the exit financing. Under the prior restructuring plan, filed in early December, holders of $2.52 billion in senior bonds and revolver loans would have received new notes in the same amountIn addition to proposing to repay those claims in cash, the revised plan also provides for the payment, in cash, of a $200 million-plus make-whole claim by the senior bondholders. Ultra disputes that its bankruptcy filing triggered the penalty payment—meant to compensate creditors for lost interest when debt isn’t paid at its scheduled maturity date—to bondholders and said it would continue to fight the claim in court.The prior plan offered to set aside a $200 million reserve for new debt to be issued to compensate the senior bondholders if they won the make-whole litigation.Make-whole payments are meant to compensate creditors for the lost interest they would have collected had the debt been repaid at the scheduled maturity date. A group of well-known distressed-debt investors including Anchorage Capital LLC, Oaktree Capital Management LP, Knighthead Capital Management LLC and Sankaty Advisors LLC, an affiliate of Bain Capital that has been renamed Bain Capital Credit, led the lawsuit over the make-whole payments on $1.46 billion in senior debt.Ultra sought chapter 11 protection last April, one of dozens of energy companies to turn to bankruptcy amid plummeting oil and gas prices. The Houston company primarily produces natural gas in Wyoming. It also owns crude oil-producing properties and Utah and natural gas-producing properties in Pennsylvania. Source: The Wall Street Journal