Independent News & Media has seen two of its biggest shareholders offer £27 million of their own cash to secure refinancing for the ailing group.
Sir Anthony O’Reilly and Denis O’Brien have put up the cash to help renegotiate a €200 million bond before a mid-May deadline.
INM’s advisors hope to convince investors to roll over between 60% and 70% of their investments into a new bond with a higher interest rate, with the rest redeemed with O’Reilly and O’Brien’s input and other bank facilities.
INM needs to renegotiate the bonds by the time it releases its annual results otherwise auditors will be unable to sign-off the company.
Last week, the group delayed publishing its results for a second time amid further debt talks, which has reached £1.3 billion.
Corporate finance group Lazard has reportedly been looking for potential buyers of the company’s loss-making UK titles, although it does not yet have a full mandate to explore a sale.
However, the sale process could be formally launched when INM issues its 2008 results this Thursday – which are due to show revenues down by 3% at €1.4 billion, with operating profits of about €270 million.
