Beximco urges BB to stagger another large loan repayment

Now Sonali Bank Limited, the largest of state-owned commercial banks (SoCBs), has passed on a proposal of Beximco Group to the central bank for restructuring another chunk of large loan worth Tk 10.75 billion.
Beximco, one of the top business conglomerates in Bangladesh, has submitted this application for restructuring the loan taken against its only one unit, officials said.
Earlier, another state-owned bank, Janata Bank Limited, had sent a proposal of the Beximco Group to the central bank for restructuring Tk 18.49 billion worth of credit taken against its five units.
"We've received a loan-restructuring proposal from Sonali Bank Limited," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Wednesday about the latest petition.
He said the proposal will be sent to inter-departmental committee of the central bank Thursday to scrutinise the terms and conditions for the loan recast.
"We'll take decision on the proposal after receiving the committee's report."
The BB has already formed a six-member inter-departmental committee to go through the terms and conditions, set by the central bank earlier, for restructuring loans properly.
The Group, if it is allowed to restructure of its outstanding loans, will have to repay its short-term outstanding loans amounting to Tk 3.73 billion by June 2021 in 21 equal instalments. The repayment period starts from June 2016.
Its long-term loans worth Tk 7.02 billion will have to be cleared by June 2027 by 45 equal instalments, according to the proposal.
"We've proposed to charge 10 per cent interest on both the short-and long-term loans," a senior official of the state-owned bank told the FE.
He also said the bank will be benefited if the borrowers repay all dues as per their commitments.
Under the existing loan-restructuring policy, failure to pay two consecutive instalments will be considered default and the restructuring facility will stand cancelled.
The central bank earlier determined large borrowers by the size of their outstanding loan portfolios -- Tk 5.0 billion being the baseline.
The interested large borrowers will have to apply for recast of their loan portfolios by June 30.
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