Bangalore: British Yellow Pages publisher Hibu Plc., struggling with heavy debt, said it plans to present a restructuring proposal to lenders by January and would try to clean up its balance sheet by the first half of 2013.
The company, formerly Yell Group, has already formed a committee of lenders to lead the restructuring talks and has suspended loan payments.
Hibu said last month that it had reached a deal with the lenders’ committee to defer repayments for £537.3 million (Dh3.13 billion) of debt until it fixes its balance sheet. The directories publisher had a net debt of £2.09 billion and cash of £112 million as of September 30.
It is yet to reach a deal with other lenders, some of whom have threatened legal actions to recover up to £65 million.
Hibu reported a pretax profit of £7 million for the six months ended September 30, down from £69.2 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 15 per cent to £659.9 million.
