Aeroméxico creditor takes stand against restructuring plan

Grupo Aeroméxico creditor Invictus Global Management, a US-based investment firm, has released a public letter objecting to the carrier’s restructuring plan to exit its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, arguing that the plan would unfairly benefit shareholder Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson).

Invictus Global Management, also a Delta shareholder, addressed Delta’s board of directors in the letter claiming that it and other creditors had spent “weeks trying to engage in good faith with Delta to address an array of apparent conflicts, disclosure issues, and underhanded dealings” the US carrier had allegedly facilitated during the restructuring, to no avail.

The Aeroméxico (AM, México City Int’l) parent announced on December 16 a tender offer in which “a company, not related to Aeroméxico” would be giving shareholders the option of withdrawing from the stock before an imminent capitalisation of the airline’s debts that will “substantially dilute” current shares on emerging from Chapter 11.

Delta’s stake would be diluted from 49% to 20%, while Apollo Global Management, which provided the USD1 billion debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to Grupo Aeroméxico, would become the Mexican carrier’s biggest shareholder.

“We will not sit idly by as Delta tries to ram through a restructuring plan that is underpinned by an opaque economic arrangement with Apollo Global Management and seemingly egregious financial terms that defy decades of bankruptcy precedent,” the Invictus letter, signed by founder and partner Cindy Chen Delano, protested.

“Delta’s willingness to strike its own self-serving and under-disclosed deal at the expense of vendors, suppliers, employees, and other creditors is something we would expect from an unscrupulous vulture fund [but not from Delta]. We believe Delta’s largest institutional shareholders will ultimately be appalled upon learning about what has transpired during this process.”

Invictus will be taking steps to formally object to the proposed restructuring plan, it added.

“It is clear that daylight needs to shine on the actions and decisions that could position you to make hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of other stakeholders, including the many who stand to be economically crushed under the plan preferred by Delta and Apollo,” the letter concluded.