(News Bulletin 247) – The operator of retirement homes announced on Monday that 51% of its unsecured creditors had accepted this plan which provides for a significant write-off of capital debt and will bring Orpea under the control of a group of investors. conducted by the CDC.

The group of retirement homes Orpea, recently passed under the control of the Caisse des dépôts, announced Monday an agreement with the majority of its creditors on the restructuring plan providing for the erasure of part of its heavy debt.

“About 51% of the company’s unsecured financial creditors have joined the agreement,” Orpea said in a statement, adding that these lenders hold a total of “about 1.9 billion euros” in debt.

This majority membership paves the way for “the opening of an accelerated safeguard procedure” that the group intends to request “in the coming days” from the Commercial Court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), “with the aim of implement its financial restructuring plan”.

Orpea will write off 3.8 billion euros in debt

This plan plans to erase 3.8 billion euros of the group’s debts out of a total of 9.7 billion (or around 39% of this amount), by converting them into capital.

It also stipulates that investors bring 1.55 billion euros of new money to the group, present in 22 countries and which manages some 350 establishments – retirement homes and clinics – in France.

Operations that accompany the change of shareholders recorded in early February, since at the end of the process, Orpea will be 50.2% owned by a group led by Caisse des dépôts and including insurers such as CNP Assurances, Maif and MACSF .

Sales of real estate assets

In turmoil since the publication in early 2022 of the book-investigation “Les Fossoyeurs” and its revelations of mistreatment and financial irregularities, the French champion of retirement homes has lost more than 95% of its stock market value in 14 months.

This did not prevent it from obtaining 600 million euros in additional credit last week from “large French banks”, to “cover its liquidity needs”. A sum that the group has promised to complete by selling “1.25 billion euros of real estate assets” by the end of 2025.

(With AFP)