A group of PT Visi Media Asia’s creditors said it convinced a judge in Jakarta to fully accept its US$560 million debt claims, allowing it to participate in the company’s restructuring and potentially recover some of what its members are owed.
   
The ruling by Judge Kadarisman Al Riskandar of the Central Jakarta Commercial Court on Monday overruled the earlier decision by court administrators who had rejected the claims, according to a statement from the lender group. The lenders in the case include Tor Investment Partners and Varde Partners Inc.

The judge’s action runs counter to some recent decisions by Indonesian courts that have ruled against international creditors and triggered concerns that the country poses hurdles for private credit lenders - even as Asia is considered one of the fastest growing markets for such products.  

The court administrators, in rejecting the lenders’ claims, had cited a lawsuit filed by the company’s subsidiary, Intermedia Capital, against 13 creditors, Bloomberg reported in May. According to court documents seen by Bloomberg News, the lawsuit claimed the private credit funds unlawfully seized and enforced the shares backing their loan.

But Judge Al Riskandar said on Monday that the lawsuit had little merit and he’s convinced that the shares haven’t changed hands, according to Marx Andryan, managing partner of MARX & Co, which represents lenders.

The debt in question was originally incurred by Visi Media under a US$230 million credit facility in 2013, the lender group said in a statement. It was then refinanced by the international lenders at the request of Visi through senior and junior facilities in 2017, it said. 

The facilities have been in default since 2018, and the debtors “haven’t remedied any of their defaults nor made any payment of principal or interest” to the lenders for the last four years, according to the group’s statement. 

Other lenders in this case include Goldman Sachs Group Inc, AB CarVal Investors LP, Arkkan Capital and UBS Group AG. 

Visi Media, controlled by Indonesia’s Bakrie conglomerate, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. 

The Jakarta-based media company came up with a restructuring proposal last week, under which it would delay final repayment of the principal owed to a group of private credit funds by as much as 30 years. The funds’ exclusion from a verified list of creditors means they wouldn’t be able to participate in any discussions on a possible deal or vote against the plan. 

  - Bloomberg