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Halcrow, the major British engineering company, is “on the brink” of signing the debt payment offer from the Dubai World-owned Nakheel, the UK firm’s managing director in Dubai has said.
The company, which is owed money for a group of mediumsized projects including a district cooling plant on Palm Jumeirah, last year posted a 57% drop in profits due to late payments from Dubai developers, leading to 60 job cuts in its Middle East division, reported The National newspaper.
Under Nakheel’s repayment plan, trade creditors are being offered 100% of their agreed claims, comprising a 40% cash payment and 60% in the form of a publicly-tradable security with an annual return of 10%. “There are still a couple of finer details to sort out,” Halcrow’s managing director for the Middle East David Yaw told The National.
“Nakheel has a specialised team of people working on this. We hope to have it finalised in a few weeks or a month at the most.” Nakheel said last month it had secured agreement on 50% of claims totalling US $1.6 billion (AED 5.87 billion) from its trade creditors.
The Palm islands developer, which is restructuring $10.5 billion of debt, said it would start paying contractors and suppliers once it had secured the consent on 65% of claims from creditors. Riad Kamal, the chief executive of Arabtec Holding , which is owed money on the Al Furjan villa community in Dubai, said the company had signed the offer.