Reuters: Bankruptcy News: UPDATE 1-Italy's Deiulemar collapses in shipping slump

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UPDATE 1-Italy's Deiulemar collapses in shipping slump May 3rd 2012, 11:25 Thu May 3, 2012 7:25am EDT (adds quote, background, details) LONDON May 3 (Reuters) - Italian shipping company Deiulemar Compagnia di Navigazione was declared bankrupt on Thursday with debt of about 860 million euros ($1.1 billion), one of the highest-profile casualties of a four-year slump in the sector. The move comes as Italian financial regulator CONSOB investigates the legality of bonds issued by the company, once one of Europe's biggest dry bulk ship operators. A judge rejected an agreement with creditors proposed by family owned Deiulemar, the bankruptcy office of Torre Annunziata, Naples, told Reuters on Thursday. Torre del Greco-based Deiulemar was not immediately available for comment. A slump in world freight rates in the last few months hit Deiulemar hard and was compounded by protests from thousands of bondholders seeking compensation after learning of large borrowings by the firm that had not been properly accounted for. Lawyer Giuseppe Colapietro, who represents a committee of bondholders, said that the last-minute proposal submitted by the founding families to try and save the company was not satisfactory for the creditors and left no choice to the judge but to declare the bankruptcy. "I am sorry for the company, which has been working for 40 years, for the bondholders and for the employees but the founding families should have offered a better deal to creditors," Colapietro said on Thursday. Deiulemar was founded in 1969 by Giovanni della Gatta, Giuseppe Lembo and Michele Iuliano, who are members of three well-known families in the local community and in the Naples shipping sector. While the firm's 2010 balance sheet showed it had issued only about 40 million euros of bonds, an appeal by the company for bondholders to come forward and disclose their holdings in recent weeks pointed to the existence of more than 700 million euros ($920.64 million) in bonds. Deiulemar said in April it had liabilities of about 860 million euros, most of which in were in bonds to be repaid. ($1 = 0.7603 euros) (Reporting by Silvia Antonioli; Editing by Jonathan Saul and Erica Billingham) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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