Greece’s power company PPC to sell unpaid bills to JPMorgan
June 23, 2020
Public Power Corporation (PPC) , Greece’s biggest utility, is close to selling off a bundle of unpaid bills worth about 300 million euros in a secularization deal with JPMorgan, two sources close to the matter told news agency reuters on Tuesday.
PPC, which is 51% state-owned, is struggling under a pile of about 2.7 billion euros of electricity bills left unpaid from Greeks hard up because of the country’s decade-long debt crisis.
The utility has been working for months on a plan to securitise part of the arrears.
PPC will now seek to raise 200-250 million euros from the transaction with JPMorgan, which includes arrears of up to 60 days, one of the sources said, adding that the deal would be discussed at a board meeting on Tuesday.
Under the deal, PPC will continue to collect the bills, while JPMorgan will get an interest rate of around 3.5% from the utility and will be paid back after a period of time. In a securitisation, debts are turned into securities which are parcelled up and sold to investors.
The utility declined to comment.
PPC is also looking to securitise a second tranche of bills that are in arrears by more than 90 days and considered non-performing, the second source said.
The sources said that the second transaction was expected to be concluded in September or October.
source: reuters
