Corporate Travel Giant CWT to Declare Chapter 11 Insolvency

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Skift Take

The travel agency signs up with Hertz, Worldstrides and numerous airline companies in taking this specific route to weather the monetary storm triggered by the pandemic.

Matthew Parsons

Corporate travel bureau CWT stated it is preparing a pre-packaged Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. to finish a complicated $1.5 billion refinancing offer.

In general, it has proposed a restructuring arrangement with creditors to enable it to unload $900 million of debt.

Chapter 11 is a form of personal bankruptcy that includes a reorganization of a debtor’s company affairs, debts and properties, and has already been embraced by numerous travel business to weather hard pandemic-related trading conditions.

“We prepare to utilize a ‘pre-packaged’ court-supervised process to implement the arrangement on a sped up basis in the coming weeks while we continue running normally. We look forward to moving ahead as an essentially more powerful business,” a spokesperson for CWT stated.

The news is the current in a string insolvency filings and restructuring in travel.

Automobile rental giant Hertz filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy security in May 2020, leaving in June this year, after working with co-sponsors Certares Management and Knighthead Capital Management.

In July in 2015, U.S. academic travel expert WorldStrides went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy defense, which it emerged from in October.

Airline companies too have protected under court defense, especially those operating in Latin America, including the region’s largest, LATAM, along with AeroMexico.

“CWT is taking steps to implement our previously revealed contract with our monetary partners that will substantially enhance our financial position, supply considerable liquidity and lower our financial obligation by roughly 50 percent,” the spokesperson added. “We already have overwhelming support for the contract from our financial stakeholders representing one hundred percent of our bank group and holders of over 90 percent of our outstanding protected debt.

The firm did not react to a demand from Skift about when it expected to exit the insolvency defense in time for publication. But, according to reports, it is be finalized by the end of this month.

Speaking with Skift in September, CEO McKinney Frymire said that having more than 90 percent of the financial obligation holders in the contract demonstrated the assistance the monetary stakeholders had for the business.