Arabtec shareholders decide to file for immediate liquidation

Dubai: There will be no last minute rescue for the cash-strapped Arabtec - shareholders have agreed with the board of directors' decision to liquidate the company at the earliest possible opportunity. An application is to be filed for its insolvent liquidation with the competent courts.

"The Board has concluded that it is no longer tenable for the company to continue operating outside of a formal insolvency process," a statement issued after the shareholders' meeting said. "And that it is in the best interests of the company’s stakeholders that the company be placed into an insolvent liquidation (subject to court approval) at the earliest opportunity."

For a few hours this morning (November 30), it was felt that the company could yet be saved from disbanding itself. A group of shareholders came together with a proposal to ditch the liquidation move and instead work out ways to restructure and thus go in for business continuity.

But hard reality intervenes

But the shareholders’ meeting immediately put paid to all such expectations. Saving the company through a strategic investor coming in was ruled out as being unviable by many market watchers. Apparently, it was the view shared by the majority of shareholders as well.

The statement issued after the meeting sets out the next step Arabtec will take to get the liquidation move going – “Owing to inter-dependencies of certain of the company’s subsidiaries, the application to the competent courts will also request that Arabtec Construction llc, Arabtec Constructions llc, Austrian Arabian Readymix Concrete Co. llc and Arabtec Precast LLC (collectively the Impacted Companies) will also be placed into insolvent liquidation simultaneously.”