Tag: Joan Gaspart

Park Street Advisors Pulls Out Of Husa Rescue Plan

9 May 2016 – Expansión

Park Street Advisors, the London fund specialising in distressed assets, which was going to come to Husa’s rescue, has got cold feet. The group has ruled out the possibility of developing the agreement that it had reached with the Gaspart family to create a joint venture to take control of the parent company, Chain, and inject €1.5 million to ensure its continuity.

Sources close to the company owned by the Gaspart family have confirmed that “this operation will not go ahead”, although “they do not rule out possible future collaborations”.

The agreement with Park Street was announced in January last year, when Husa tried to convince its creditors to approve an agreement that proposed a discount of 95% on its €221 million debt. In exchange, the company committed to return €5 million over the next five years, thanks to the agreement with Park Street, and whereby ensure the continuity of the business that has maintained the group.

Joan Gaspart (pictured above) managed to obtain approval for the agreement from the group’s four main companies last summer; the others filed for liquidation. Over the last few months, they have been filing for bankruptcy, with a view to liquidating some of the other small companies, such as Husa Service Hostelería, which recently suspended its payments in Commercial Court number 3 in Barcelona.

Last summer, the agreement with the Treasury and Social Security, to whom Husa still owes €20 million, remained pending.

Although that matter has still not be resolved, the official of Commercial Court number 3 in Barcelona raised preliminary protective measures under which all of Husa’s companies would remain active.

In its heyday in 2007, the chain owned by the former President of FC Barcelona and the President of Tourism in Barcelona, managed around 200 assets, of which around 140 were hotels and the rest were restaurants. The chain currently operates twelve hotels in Spain and Belgium.

But not all of the business was lost. In recent years, prior to the creditors’ bankruptcy, the Gaspart family transferred some of the hotels that it operated, mainly those that worked the best, to another family company called Atiram, which is run by Joan Gaspart’s daughter, María Gaspart Bueno, as the sole director.

Original story: Expansión (by Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Husa Emerges From Bankruptcy After €130M Reprieve

28 July 2015 – Expansión

Yesterday, Husa managed to secure the support of its two main creditors, Deutsche Bank and Banco Sabadell, for its proposed agreement to exit from the bankruptcy proceedings that it has been immersed in for the last year and a half.

The hotel chain owned by the former President of FC Barcelona, Joan Gaspart (pictured above), will surrender assets worth €80 million to the banks and others worth a further €25 million to the public administrations. A discount of more than 95% will be applied to its ordinary loans, which amount to more than €90 million.

Twelve companies filed for creditors bankruptcy in total, of which eight will go into liquidation, leaving an unpaid balance of €40 million, therefore, in total, the company will benefit from a “reprieve” of around €130 million.

Yesterday, at the creditors’ meeting for four of the group’s companies, Husa secured sufficient support for two of them: Hostelería Unida 2 and Jardines de Albia. Hostelería Unida is expected to also secure sufficient support (based on the agreements made yesterday and the support it expects to receive by post from the overseas financial institutions). A fourth company, Solsibu, is still waiting to secure sufficient support.

Creditors

Husa won the support of its two large creditors only: Deutsche Bank and Sabadell. The other creditors that participated in the meeting yesterday, such as the Social Security, the Tax Authorities and other suppliers of the group, all voted against the proposed agreement.

One of them, the company Denbolan, which operates in the temporary work sector, spoke at the meeting, stating that it would appeal against the proposed agreement. “It is regrettable that the law is designed in such a way so as to inflict the most harm on small creditors”, said its legal representative.

After the meeting, the President of the Husa Group, Joan Gaspart, said that he was “saddened by the gravity of the situation”, but also “grateful and hopeful about the future”.

The former President of Barça is hopeful that the support received yesterday will represent “a second chance” for Husa, which will work in collaboration with its new partner, Park Street. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake