Great Financial Restructuring In Enersis - 7 October, 2002

Enersis, Latin America's largest listed electricity group, announced a massive financial restructuring. The company will issue fresh equity worth of $1.5bn, cut debt and sell $1bn of non-essential businesses including the disposal of Rio Maipo, property devel oper Manso de Velasco. The move can be seen as a pre-emptive strike against further downgrades on its $9.2bn debt pile, some of which may be called in by banks.Although there’s a chance that S&P could trigger so-called "cross-default" clauses on some of the group's loans which is to keep the banks from calling in about $2bn in loans.Enersis has suffered from devaluation and recession in Argentina, Chile and other countries. Friday's announcement immediately brightened market sentiment, and Enersis' shares soared 10 per cent on the Santiago stock exchange.