Spain

Catalonia is deliberately flirting with default on its bank loans as the region’s separatist government tries to force the Spanish state to deliver aid payments, according to two people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg News reported.

Abengoa’s global ambitions are now the source of its troubles, the International New York Times reported. Saddled with debt from its expansion, the company is scrambling to avoid what would be the largest bankruptcy in Spanish corporate history. Creditors and shareholders are taking the company to court as losses mount and crucial financial support disappears. The company’s changing fortunes, from industry darling to financial invalid, are an extreme example of the challenges facing players in the renewable energy business.

Struggling energy and engineering firm Abengoa will probably have to ask a court for more time to get lenders to back its debt restructuring, as its race to avoid becoming Spain's first ever bankruptcy goes down to the wire, Reuters reported. The company said on Wednesday it expected to have the support of creditors representing 60 percent of its financial debt by a legal deadline on March 28.

Abengoa SA is stepping up efforts to win creditor support for a debt-restructuring plan two weeks ahead of a court deadline that could lead to insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. The Spanish renewable-energy company still needs the support of lenders with about 35 percent of its debt to approve a deal agreed with its main bank creditors and bondholders last week, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private.

Debt-laden engineer Abengoa said on Thursday it had agreed a draft rescue plan with creditors to cut debt and inject fresh cash, in the latest attempt to avoid what could be Spain's biggest bankruptcy. Loss-making Abengoa, which started out 70 years ago as an engineering business in Seville and expanded into clean energy by taking on huge debts, entered pre-insolvency proceedings last year when lenders refused to extend credit lines.

Abengoa's majority shareholder is ready to have its stake diluted to around 5 percent in a bid to receive new emergency cash and facilitate a debt restructuring deal, four sources close to the talks between the firm and its creditors said. The sources said creditor banks and bondholders had set two conditions prior to discussing a debt-for-equity swap, a potential haircut and the injection of new liquidity to save the energy firm from becoming Spain's biggest ever bankruptcy.

Debt-laden Spanish energy group Abengoa has appointed a new chairman to try to distance the firm's management from its main shareholder and facilitate a debt restructuring, Reuters reported. The Seville-based company is racing to reach an agreement with its banks and bondholders by March 28, when it would risk a full-blown insolvency process after piling up debts of almost 9.4 billion euros ($10 billion). Antonio Fornieles Melero will become executive chairman, replacing Jose Abascal, the company said in a statement to Spain's stock exchange regulator.

Abengoa SA, the Spanish renewable-energy company scrambling to avoid bankruptcy, reported a 1.2 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) loss for 2015 after its business was revalued amid a financial restructuring process, Bloomberg News reported. The Seville-based company shifted to a loss after posting net income of 125.3 million euros the previous year, according to a regulatory filing Monday. The loss was mainly due to “negative impacts” of 878 million euros, related to a “viability plan” developed by adviser Alvarez & Marsal, according to the filing.

Indebted Spanish energy firm Abengoa, on the brink of becoming the country's largest ever bankruptcy, does not have enough cash to pay February wages, its chairman told local employees in an emailed letter on Friday. According to the document, seen by Reuters, Jose Abascal also said negotiations between the firm and creditors over a wide-ranging refinancing deal were close to the finish line and he hoped the situation could be resolved "in the next days." An Abengoa spokeswoman declined to comment.

In 2013 GSO, a hedge fund backed by the private equity group Blackstone, made a loan to a Spanish gambling company. The terms of the loan were designed so that whatever happened, GSO would make a profit on credit derivatives it had bought as insurance against a debt default by the company, the Financial Times reported. Now GSO is accusing a rival of adopting a similar strategy in a battle over the debt of Norske Skog, a distressed Norwegian paper company.