Debt plan well received: Dubai finance chief

DUBAI: Dubai’s proposed $9.5 billion plan to address its embattled conglomerate Dubai World’s debt crisis has been well received, Dubai’s finance chief was quoted as saying on Friday.

Abdulrahman al Saleh, director general of the Dubai finance department, said in remarks to be aired in a television interview that the initial response was a “preliminary indication that the plan would be accepted”.

The plan, which involves repaying property unit Nakheel’s 2010 and 2011 bonds in full and on time, will require other of the conglomerate’s lenders to wait five to eight years for full repayment. It needs the acceptance of all the creditors, owed in total about $26 billion.

The Nakheel bonds, the first for 3.6 billion UAE dirhams ($980 million), the second for $750 million, soared on Thursday when the proposals were released. Nakheel’s trade creditors will get 40 per cent of their claims in cash, while 60 per cent could be rolled into an Islamic bond, the government said on Friday. “For the Nakheel sukukholders, it sounds great,” said a banker at a Gulf-based creditor bank. “For everyone else, we’ll have to see who gets paid what and when.”