Elektrim is still aggressively working toward an agreement with bondholders and potential investors to avert bankruptcy, though telecom analysts said the troubled energy and telecom holding company should bail out immediately and plan to begin insolvency proceedings next month.
Earlier this month, Elektrim filed for bankruptcy, which is expected to take place on Oct. 7.
It was the latest move in the company's drawn-out saga of corporate collapse, which began last December when Elektrim defaulted on a €480 million bond issue. The situation grew more tense with the company's recent abandonment of a restructuring deal with its creditors.
Following the bankruptcy motion, a consortium led by Elliot Advisors, one of Elektrim's creditors, bid €1.3 billion for full control of Elektrim Telekomunikacja (ET), which controls the coveted Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC), Poland's largest wireless company. The purchase by the consortium, if it comes to fruition, would allow Elektrim to pay back most of its debt and prevent bankruptcy.
Wojciech Janczyk, appointed chief executive officer of Elektrim last week, said at a news conference that he would withdraw the bankruptcy filing if the firm could reach an agreement with bondholders. But analysts said this last-ditch effort to reach an agreement was too little too late.
"They've been negotiating for eight or nine months already," said Magdalena Łapsa, an analyst at SG Securities. "I don't believe the bondholders would want to be fooled again."
During the past few months, bondholders and interested investors have presented Elektrim with reasonable offers - mostly to gain control of ET - only to have them almost unexplainably rebuffed, she added.
Analysts said that Elektrim's past inability to come to terms with its agreements is a story that will only see its final chapter in the courthouse.
"(Filing) is something they should have done a long time ago," Łapsa said. "The best solution is for Elektrim to go bankrupt (and) not to wait another year. "From that point, it's better for Elektrim, and it's better for the bondholders."
