Creditors accept repayment proposal unanimously
CREDITORS ACCEPT TTFA’S REPAYMENT PROPOSAL UNANIMOUSLY
The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association’s (TTFA) creditors met today and voted unanimously in favour of a debt repayment proposal through the Bankruptcy `Act that will see them receive based on the current validated claims anywhere from 63 cents in the dollar to 100 per cent of the monies owed to them.
The meeting was held at the Home of Football, Couva and chaired remotely by the Supervisor of Insolvency, who was in quarantine.
Creditors were invited to vote after a comprehensive 45-minute presentation by the TTFA appointed Trustee, Maria Daniel, that gave a full illustration of how the TTFA found itself in its current state of debt and the options that were considered before arriving at utilising the restructuring option available through the `Bankruptcy Act option.
Referee’s Association representative Osmond Downer, complemented Daniel on the quality of her work and proposal, evoking applause from the entire room.
The proposal, which was developed by Daniel and her EY Team in collaboration with the TTFA’s FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee, will be funded by an interest-free USD3.5 million instrument that the TTFA will have 10 years to repay. Creditors owed up to TT$200,000 will be paid in full and the balances above that will be pro-rated. They will also have the option to be paid in US or TT dollars.
There were 299 creditors listed in the Trustee’s repayment proposal with a total unsecured debt of TT$84.5 million. Ninety-three of these submitted, had claims amounting to $59.3m of which eighty-eight were validated with a value of $34.4m before today’s meeting. Fifty-one of them (or their proxies) registered and voted at today’s meeting. Notably absent was the TTFA’s largest listed creditor, Austin Jack Warner, who topped the list with a debt of $22.7 million. Daniel advised the meeting that Warner did not submit a claim for validation.
The Trustee’s original proposal, which creditors received on April 22, was enhanced prior to the meeting – total funding was increased by US$500,000 to US$3.5 million, and instead of allocating a TT$3 million provision for the BIR and the NIB, funds would now be set aside for outstanding payments monthly.
The meeting included representatives from the Office of the Supervisor of Insolvency; law firm Fitzwilliam, Stone, Furness-Smith & Morgan; EY; and Normalisation Committee chairman Robert Hadad and member Nicholas Gomez.
