Indonesia is looking to restructuring Garuda Indonesia’s debts as the maturity of one of its bonds, with a face value of $500 million, draws close.
“Garuda at this point of time is under extraordinary pressure as [some of its] debt are maturing. And we will be sure to restructure [the debts so as to] find a way out, and so that [Garuda] can be healthy again,” minister for state-owned enterprises, Erick Thohir said at the CNBC Indonesia Economic Outlook 2020 conference held in Jakarta on 26 February, Indonesian news outlet Detik reports.
Thohir did not specify which debts he was referring to, but the flag carrier has a 2015-issued $500 million, 5.95% sukuk that matures in June.
At the start of this year, Garuda delayed plans to issue up to $900 million in funds to refinance its debts, as its financial results for 2019 would not be ready for an extraordinary general meeting scheduled for January.
The airline was planning to seek shareholder approval for its fundraising plans through three options: a global sukuk issuance, a private placement, or peer-to-peer lending. The fresh debt would either be used to refinance the sukuk or clear debts with a one-year repayment term.
Earlier, Thohir told a parliamentary commission that five non-core Garuda subsidiaries will be liquidated as they “did not bring any benefits” to the company.
“We are proposing [the liquidation] to president Joko Widodo and finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati. [We are also asking] for an additional mandate, where we can merge and liquidate [subsidiaries]… For example at Garuda, there are five subsidiaries that are ready to be liquidated,” Thohir told the commission, according to a 20 February report by local paper Kompas.
While Thohir did not name the five subsidiaries to the commission, he later disclosed at the CNBC event that an e-commerce and online logistics provider known as TauBeres is likely to be one of them, CNBC Indonesia reports.
In an undated investor presentation discussing its financial results for the quarter ended 30 September 2019, Garuda had identified TauBeres as part of its cargo strategy.
Cirium’s attempts to reach Garuda by phone are so far unsuccessful.
