4 months ago
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Representatives of businessman Michael Lee-Chin are working to reschedule bondholder meetings that were postponed this week.
The meetings were called over delayed or missed payments and a new proposal for the servicing of nine bond tranches issued by Portland Barbados Limited, and one bond issued by the Specialty Coffee Investment Company Limited. Both entities are controlled by Portland Chairman Lee-Chin.
“Both meetings were postponed,” Lee-Chin told the Financial Gleaner.
He attributed the postponement to a medical emergency involving a team member from the issuing company.
“The meeting was to have given the noteholders the proposal,” he said, but declined to provide details of the terms being proposed.
“We are in the middle of negotiating with the noteholders, to ensure that we satisfy our obligations to our noteholders to keep them whole,” he added on Wednesday, while reiterating that it wouldn’t be appropriate to go into the specifics with the media at this time.
One of the Portland bond tranches carries an interest rate of 9.0 per cent and is due in August 2025, as disclosed in a notice of meetings over the bonds posted by JCSD Trustee Services in the newspaper last weekend. However, the interest terms of the remaining tranches were not disclosed in the notice. The trustee, which serves as an intermediary between bondholders and the issuers — in this case, Portland and Specialty Coffee — had scheduled the meetings over two Portland fixed-rate bonds and one Specialty Coffee bond on June 17, and another on June 18 for another seven Portland bonds.
The Portland bonds mature in phases: August 2024, January 2025, August 2025, August 2026 and January 2027. Four of the Portland bond tranches are past their maturity date.
Portland is a holding company with investments in large and mid-sized firms across the region and Latin America. Specialty Coffee Investment Company is the holder of Wallenford Estate and Mavis Bank Coffee Factory Limited. Its $1.8-billion bond matures in October 2025.
The JCSD did not respond to enquiries about the delayed meetings. Bondholder consent is typically required for changes to bond terms, or covenants.
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