Americanas’ trio adding more money to table as creditor talks continue

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian retailer Americanas said on Monday its reference shareholders have signaled with the possibility of injecting more money into the company as it looks for a deal to settle its debts.

The company, which counts the billionaire trio that founded 3G Capital as reference shareholders, said in a securities filing it was holding periodic meetings with creditors, although no agreement had been reached yet.

Americanas, which entered bankruptcy protection earlier this year after uncovering roughly $4 billion in “accounting inconsistencies”, said the trio’s most recent proposal to creditors totaled as much as 12 billion reais ($2.38 billion)

The offer included two potential additional capital increases of up to 1 billion reais each, on top of a short-term injection of 10 billion reais in cash already proposed by reference shareholders Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Herrmann Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira.

“The two additional capital increases may be triggered if the company is, on future dates to be agreed, above certain maximum leverage limits or below a minimum liquidity level, both to be detailed in due course,” Americanas said.

“The company remains committed to negotiating these terms with its financial creditors,” it added , noting the offer followed a “commitment” of the billionaire trio to capitalize the company.

($1 = 5.0404 reais)

(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo and Alberto Alerigi Jr.; Editing by Steven Grattan)