Beleaguered Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel has won two key votes this week, allowing it to restructure its £6.2bn debts. Eurotunnel had faced the possibility of liquidation if the financial establishments committee - creditors who hold some 70% of the firm's total debts - had voted against its proposals. Several US hedge funds had abstained from the meeting in the hope of forcing the company over the edge, gambling that they would receive more from a liquidation than the rescue package.
But in the end the vote on Monday 27 November was almost unanimous - of the 35 creditors present, 28 voted in favour of the proposals. In all this represented 72% of its bank debts. That vote was followed by another in the afternoon from Eurotunnel's suppliers, who also backed the rescue package.
Jacques Gounon, chairman and chief executive of Eurotunnel, says: "The result of the ballot demonstrates that the proposed plan is the best balance possible between shareholders and creditors and that it was not possible to ask the creditors, who have already agreed to reduce the Eurotunnel's debt by more than half, to go any further."
However, the company still faces a third vote from its bond holders in mid-December.