The Puerto Rico Oversight Board said settlements in the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bankruptcy are near after they sought and received another deadline extension for filing its debt adjustment plans.
“While the Oversight Board cannot guaranty further settlement will be attained, it continues to believe the prospects of at least one major settlement is high and possibly two major settlements are sufficient to avoid filing an amended plan this week that might have to be amended again shortly thereafter,” the board’s attorneys told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain Thursday.
The attorneys asked Swain to extend the deadline for its filing a proposed plan of adjustment to Aug. 11 from Friday and to extend the deadline for filing a joint status report with a proposed litigation schedule to Aug. 16 from Wednesday, which Swain approved.
Bloomberg News
In the board’s filing, the attorneys said the PREPA mediation team “fully supports the requested deadline extension with the caveat that any further support for extensions would require either extraordinary cause or be based on agreements approved and authorized by each side but requiring additional time for documentation only.”
In recent weeks, the board reached an agreement with the fuel line lenders to make its proposed deal with them consistent with the board’s new PREPA fiscal plan.
Discussions about restructuring PREPA’s debt have taken place since summer 2014 and the authority has been in a bankruptcy process since summer 2017.
In late June, Swain agreed to postpone PREPA plan of adjustment hearings planned for late July. Nearly all parties had requested the postponement, with the board saying is proposed plan of adjustment would have to be modified after it approved a new PREPA fiscal plan.
Later in June the board said it could guarantee payment of no more than 12.5% to non-settling bondholders. Three days later Swain said bondholders had a claim to $2.4 billion of the $8.5 billion owed to them.