| TPI needs the stevedores to move more oil drums in Bangkok |
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Mired in debt, Thai Petrochemical Industry is Thailand's biggest restructuring headache. Central to the problem is a perceived difference over strategy between TPI's management and recovery practitioner Ferrier Hodgson. If TPI is to pull itself clear of trouble, its managers claim, it needs access to large amounts of working capital that are not currently forthcoming.
TPI is Thailand's largest defaulting corporate debtor. It owes $2.9 billion in principal and $800 million in accrued interest, in eight currencies, to some 150 creditors from 40 countries.
Lenders have spent a year thrashing out a restructuring plan, amid objections from TPI management and protests from refinery workers and working with a court system deemed "too debtor friendly" by many. Now the company is asking for another $200 million to $250 million in working capital to bring its downstream petrochemicals production up to full capacity.