Creditors of China’s HNA Group approve restructuring plan

A working group of creditors, investors, and administrators of HNA Group and its related companies have voted to approve the company’s draft restructuring plan, Hainan Province High People’s Court revealed on October 23 in an announcement posted on the group’s official WeChat page.

According to the now-approved plan, HNA Group and 320 related companies will be split into four separate entities – broadly airlines, airports, financial, commercial – each to operate independently of the other. Steel giant Liaoning Fangda Group has agreed to assume control of the airlines entity under former HNA flagship carrier Hainan Airlines (HU, Haikou).

According to a voting table seen by ch-aviation, 58 separate parts of the draft restructuring plan were voted on, of which the Reorganisation Plan of Hainan Airlines Holding Co Ltd and its ten subsidiaries obtained 97.44% approval.

The voting process, which the court said had been conducted in accordance with China’s corporate bankruptcy laws, was the next step in the reorganisation of the bloated conglomerate after it declared bankruptcy in late January and was placed under judicial administration.

The working group, which the Hainan government created to scrutinise the company’s debt pile, confirmed on September 30 that HNA owed at least CNY1.1 trillion yuan (USD172 billion) to creditors, out of a total of CNY2 trillion (USD313 billion) in claims that creditors had so far submitted.

The court, which had previously estimated that creditors would complete voting on the draft restructuring plan by October 20, has said it expects that the embattled conglomerate’s restructuring will conclude in November.