The fate of the Onorato Armatori group which includes two of the largest Italian shipping companies: Moby spa and its subsidiary Cin spa, known as the brand name of theex public Tirrenia of which he acquired the positive assets in 2012, without paying it in full to the State. Since July 2020 the Court of Milan has placed both companies under the protection of a arrangement with creditorsprotecting them from creditors of the approx 700 million euros total of their indebtedness and by an instance of failure presented by the Milanese prosecutor Roberto Fontana. On 10 February, however, the same Court of Milan set the final limitstime and method, of this protective path.
The subject of the choice was the two new arrangement plans presented by Moby and Cin the day before the hearing on 20 th January which, according to rumors, contain a improved conditions for some creditors in the face of a complex economic-financial operation that should lead to the creation of two new companies: one set up as a financial fundowner of the fleet given as a pledge to creditors, and the other only operational, managed by the holding company led by Vincenzo Onoratowhich would ensure leasing fees for the leasing of the ships to the former, repaying part of the debt.
Agreement with the state by 31 March – Faced with these documents, the Court of Milan, in the decree filed on 10 February, on the one hand extended a hand to the companies of the Onorato Armatori group, deciding the second postponement, to 20 and 27 June 2022, the meeting of creditors who will have to vote their assent or not to what is promised by the new plans. But on the other hand, it accepted the request of the prosecutor Fontana to have an agreement with the main creditor of Cin spa by 31 March 2022, that is Tirrenia di Navigazione in AS (extraordinary administration), which is still awaiting from the Onorato group the final 180 million euros of the balance privatization and that recently, at the hands of the commissioners appointed by the Ministry of Economic Development, also obtained from the same Court of Milan a preventive seizure of 20 million euros of Onorato Armatori srl of Vincenzo Onorato.
If Tirrenia di Navigazione in AS does not ensure its support for the composition plan on 31 March, Cin spa would open theextraordinary administration – or controlled bankruptcy – and consequently the same would happen to yours parent company Moby spa. To the commissioners appointed by Mise, committed by 10 years to manage debt collection monstre of post privatization – about 800 million euros -, the Onorato group asks to accept to collect only 144 of the 180 million owed by Moby spa, in four tranches, the last of which 80% of 101 million, only to be settled in 2025.
The four conditions – However, the game is not only here. In the decree of the Court of Milan signed by the judges Alida Paluchowski e Vincenza Agnese and disclosed in part by Shipping Italy, the judges in fact cite that, in addition to obtaining the prior agreement with Tirrenia di Navigazione in AS, Moby and Cin must also produce “explicitly formalized answers” on four complex issues, without which it is ” impossible “for the judicial commissioners to draw up” the report suitable to allow creditors to exercise their vote consciously “and therefore maintain the arrangement with creditors procedure.
The State waives the guaranteed credit – The first question raised by the judges is always linked to the situation with Tirrenia di Navigazione in AS for which the company has attached a hypothetical confirmation in the new agreement plan of Cin “Letter of Intent” judged implausible by the Court of Milan. In this, in fact, the commissioners would sign not only the ok to the plan, but also the waiver of the legal actions “undertaken […] especially towards the responsible third parties, such as the directors and the parent company “, for example the seizure procedure of the 20 million to Onorato Armatori srl. In confirmation of the Court’s assessment, the judges cite a communication from January 19 last with which the commissioners of Tirrenia in AS declare that this request “cannot be accepted and has no legal reason that can justify it”.
Mortgages canceled – The second decisive question for the Court is “the cancellation of mortgages currently registered on ships of the fleet to guarantee banks and bondholders “. In fact, the solution presented in the settlement plan, for the Milanese judges, “presupposes the legal possibility” that both the banks and the holders of the 300 million euro bond expiring in 2023 “can renounce the guarantees according to the applicable legislation”. Translated that it is possible and that they really want to do it. For this, at least “one explicitly resolves to this effect“On their part and at the moment there is no, even if the Moby company had specified in a press release that” the plan has received the prior consent of the main financial creditors of the group “, or the main holders of the bond gathered in the Ad Hoc Group and banks.
Not heard from the Revenue Agency – Finally, the Court of Milan cites the considerations as the third and fourth questions backing piece legal minimum to the hypothesis presented by the arrangement plans to transfer the ships of the two companies Moby and Cin to a financial fund. To make what is written credible, in fact, the judges indicate that it is necessary at least to submit questions to the Revenue Agency on the tax treatment relating to the operation. Questions that “There is no proof” They were even presented. Similarly, writing the judges, “There appears to have acquired the consent of leasing institutions of vessels” owners (Moby Fantasy and Moby Legacy ed) “conducted in leasing from Brothers Honored Ltd., to carry out the operation” of the sale to Fund above. Formally fact the two new ships ordered from F.lli Onorato Armatori – for a total value never disclosed – will be rented by a leasing company and sub-leased to Moby to operate among the Tuscan ports of call and Olbia.