The Central Bankruptcy Court rejected the Finance Ministry’s proposal for two additional rehabilitation planners for Thai Airways today, on the grounds that the existing three planners are capable of resolving the airline’s debt problems “without a single debt repayment default.”
The court ruled that increasing the number of planners would incur additional costs, averaging five million baht per person annually, which is unnecessary.
Creditors of Thai Airways International approved, by majority, the two additional rehabilitation planners, as proposed by the Finance Ministry which claimed that they are needed to replace two who resigned in March last year and to cope with the workload, as THAI is in the process of exiting the rehabilitation process.
The two proposed planners were Panya Chupanich, director of the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning at the Transport Ministry, and Polchak Nimwatana, deputy director of the State Enterprise Policy Committee at the Finance Ministry.
The court also rejected the creditors’ approval of a debt to equity swap, aimed at wiping out THAI’s 60 billion baht in accumulated debt, and a reduction in the par-value of THAI shares to 2.5452 baht. Creditors will be issued new shares at that value.
THAI Chief Executive Officer, Chai Iamsiri, said that he will present the court’s ruling to the meeting of the planners this Thursday, including the court’s opinion that the three existing planners are empowered to pay dividends to shareholders and to reduce the par value of shares to wipe out the company’s accumulated debt.
He also said that he is confident that THAI will exit rehabilitation in the second half of this year and THAI shares will be traded on the stock market again.
