Italian PET maker Mossi&Ghisolfi files for ‘concordato preventivo’

According to the media reports, Italian PET producer Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G) Group has filed an application for admission to the arrangement with its creditors on October 16 2017 at the court of Alessandria. ‘Concordato preventivo’ is a concurrent procedure that can be used by a debtor with the requirements of a failure in order to recover by the continuation of the business and sale of the business to a third party or liquidating its assets in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy.

The company has now two debt restructuring plans to balance the financial situation and find new investors for the sustainability of their business activities. The group’s all Italian companies, namely, Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G), M&G Finanziaria, Biochemtex, Beta Renewables, Italian Bio Products, IBP Energia, M&G Polimeri and Acetati Immobiliare companies will be subject to the terms of the agreement.

Furthermore, the company will file for Chapter 11 for their activities in the US.

For the Italian companies, a file has already been presented to the major international private equity funds as well as some industrial groups including ENI and Versalis, which might be interested in acquiring the new technology developed by M&G.

M&G is in a leader position in the innovation applied to the PET sector in engineering and renewable chemical products derived from non-food bio-masses.

The company reported a turnover of €1.7 billion and EBITDA of €83.4 million in 2016, which were lower compared to the last year. However, the financial debt of the company is about €500-600 million, €200 million of which is held by Italian banks while the rest belongs to the international investors. In USA, the company’s debt to banks, in particular to Bank of America, Merril Lynch and Deutsche Bank, is rumored to be around $1 billion.

The company’s growing debt is attributed to the increased investment capitals in the newly integrated PTA/PTE plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, where the construction has now been suspended. The plant has a capacity of 1.1 million tons/year of PET and is integrated with a 1.3 million tons/year unit of PTA production.

According to local media reports, Alpek, a Mexican producer, stopped supplying PTA to two PET plants, Altamira in Mexico and Suape in Brazil, due to the unsatisfied debts of the previous feedstocks. The production at the Apple Grove plant in West Virginia may also be affected.