TRAVELEX SET TO DEFAULT ON $15.6M COUPON PAYMENTS
dubai — Travelex, part of the crisis-ridden payment network Finablr, said on Wednesday it would default on a $15.6 million coupon payment on some of its senior notes as it grapples with a hit to earnings amid the coronavirus crisis.
The news about default on coupon payments came as the board of Finablr-owned Travelex was seeking offers for the currency service provider.
In the statement to the London Stock Exchange, Travelex has said that “parties with a potential interest in making a proposal should contact PwC in order to entertain a customary non-disclosure agreement, following which they will receive certain information on the Travelex group, and will be invited to submit their indicative proposals to PwC on that basis.”
On April 30, Finablr, the embattled payments group majority-owned by BR Shetty, revealed it might have a total of $1.33 billion debt, $1 billion more than what it reported previously.
“The board cannot exclude the possibility that some of the proceeds of these borrowings may have been used for purposes outside of the Finablr Group,” the company has said.
Finablr has warned that it was preparing for potential insolvency, while operations of UAE Exchange had been placed under the supervision of the UAE Central Bank.
Finablr’s warning came a day after Shetty, currently in India, said “a forensic probe” conducted by his own advisers had found alleged fraud at the payments network as well at the UAE-based hospital operator NMC Health, which was also founded by him. NMC itself, grappling with a debt crisis of $6.6 billion, has been placed under administration by a London court.
The Central Bank of the UAE has advised banks to freeze Shetty’s accounts as well as that of his family and several other people. The Central Bank of UAE advisory was subsequent to a complaint filed by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which has the largest exposure of Dh3 billion to NMC Healthcare, alleging “fraud and forgery” against six people, including founder Shetty, and former CEO Prasanth Manghat.
Finablr’s troubles, which started in the wake of a ransom-ware attack on its Travelex business, aggravated when NMC got embroiled in scandals of financial misconduct.
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