In the last 12 months, companies listed on Catalyst have not repaid debt securities with a total value of PLN 551.8 million, which (without a pandemic connection) is an absolute record in the nearly 11-year history of this market.

The value of unpaid corporate debt nearly 1.5 times exceeded the previous record (PLN 226.9 million), recorded in 2019. At the same time, outstanding securities accounted for 5.5 percent of debt that has expired in the last 12 months, which is one of the worse results in the history of the WSE's bond market for the last time regularly seen in 2013-2015.

The most obvious reason for the record of outstanding debts is of course GetBack. Surprisingly, it was not responsible for the majority of outstanding bonds in the last 12 months, but construction PBG, which failed to implement the arrangement concluded with creditors in 2015. In recent months, the company has not repaid debt securities worth over PLN 347 million, from of which over PLN 338 million was listed on the WSE.

"In other words, a shadow on the Catalyst market this time lies on papers that matched it, like a sheepskin flower. PBG's zero-coupon debt was issued as part of a swap of arrangement claims, and virtually never traded on the WSE," noted Michał Sadrak, Obligacje.pl.

In addition to the next series of GetBack and PBG bonds, Vivid Games, a mobile games producer from Bydgoszcz, which had to take refuge from creditors in the restructuring proceedings, did not pay off its debt securities in the last quarter. Medius Law Firm also stopped servicing the debt, although the maturity date of its listed bonds expired in July, also after the opening of the restructuring proceedings.

(WBJ)