PARIS (Reuters) - French hotel real estate group AccorInvest is in talks with its banks over a possible restructuring of more than 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) of debts, financial daily Les Echos reported on its website.
AccorInvest owns and operates hotels managed by the Accor group (PA:ACCP) and is present in 31 countries with 904 hotels, for brands including Ibis, Novotel and Mercure. In 2018, Accor opened AccorInvest's capital to sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors and kept a 30% minority stake.
As hotels worlwide run at reduced capacity because of coronavirus-related travel limits, AccorInvest has proposed a financial restructuring to its banks and requested a 450 million euro state-guaranteed loan, Les Echos reported.
Accor shares, which are down about 40% since the start of the year, fell another 1.3% on Wednesday.
Les Echos said AccorInvest has started talks with its 19 French banks and a mandate has been given to two court-appointed administrators.
The paper said that the banks are reluctant to agree to the company's request because it still has a comfortable cash position and because they want its deep-pocketed investors to take part in the restructuring effort.
AccorInvest's shareholders include the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and Singapore, real estate fund Colony Capital (NYSE:CLNY), Credit Agricole (OTC:CRARY) Assurances and Amundi.
Accor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.