EUROTUNNEL, the English Channel tunnel operator, locked in tough debt-reduction negotiations with its 220 creditor banks, is expected to use a French law allowing it to call in a mediator.
The board of the Anglo-French consortium, which met in London yesterday, was expected to approve the strategy.
The decision is expected to be announced on Monday, just a day after the 10th anniversary of the signature of the Franco-British treaty that heralded the "construction job of the century" - though nobody suspected then that it would also give rise to one of the financial black holes of the century.
The prospect of a mediator enhanced Eurotunnel stock, which rose an initial 6.34 per cent to 6.70 French francs.
But the banks may well consider the move a provocation. One banking source said: "It will be interpreted as a new unilateral decision, and that doesn't make for a rapprochement."
Last September, Eurotunnel, whose operating income is too low to pay financial charges, unilaterally halted payments on its principal debt of Ffr62 billion (512.4 billion).
The banks, which feel they know too little about Eurotunnel's operations, are waiting for a report requested from the Coopers and Lybrand and the Mazars auditing firms by the four banking agents representing the banks generally (BNP, Credit Lyonnais, NatWest and Midland), to be released in mid-February. - (AFP)
