Romanian COS Targoviste Facing Bankruptcy

Ziarul Financial reported that Targoviste Romania based Special Steel Plant COS Targoviste, under insolvency procedures since 2013, has entered bankruptcy after the local court overruled its reorganization plan proposed by creditor Alphard Financial. The court rejected the exception of inadmissibility of the bankruptcy application, a request made by the electricity supplier and ordered the commencement of the bankruptcy procedure. The ruling is not final. The next deadline to continue the procedure is October 19.

COS Târgovişte announced that it would appeal against the sentence, including for the suspension of the execution of the syndic judge's decision until the appeal is resolved.

In June, the Assembly of Creditors voted to complete the reorganization plan in order to urgently start the procedure for auctioning the functional assets of COS. The proposal was made by Alphard Financial, which owns 51% of COS's receivables. According to the report of the plant, the total value of debts is 524 million lei.

The plant has been in insolvency proceedings since February 2013 and is one of the main producers of billets and steel products in Romania. The company with about 1000 employees last year recorded sales revenues of 44 million lei, compared to 590 million lei in 2019, and ended with losses of 62 million lei, from a net profit of 140 million lei a year earlier. For comparison, in 2011 COS Targoviste had a turnover of 1.1 billion lei and losses of 155 million lei with about 2,450 employees.

COS was owned by the Russian group Mechel, but the majority stake was taken over in 2013 by the offshore Mazur Investments Ltd in Cyprus, which has 86% of the capital. The Romanian state holds 4%.