EUROTUNNEL’S efforts to drum up support from shareholders for the complex financial restructuring intended to make its £8·5bn debt more manageable were rewarded at an extraordinary general meeting on July 10 in Paris. After 6 h of debate, the resolutions needed to approve the restructuring were passed by a majority of 98%.
Several groups of shareholders had threatened to vote against the plans, thereby risking a collapse of the whole Eurotunnel edifice. Among factors which persuaded the rebels to volte-face was an agreement in principle on July 1 by the French and British governments to extend Eurotunnel’s concession from 65 to ’at least 99 years’. Conditions attached to this were that the banks and shareholders endorsed the restructuring, that the governments shared profits with Eurotunnel after 2052, and that both sides should seek agreement ’on ways and means to increase railfreight traffic through the Channel Tunnel and beyond.’
Eurotunnel must now secure the support of its 174 creditor banks. o
