The banks have given PET group La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.es) an additional four weeks to put together a refinancing plan. On 3 November 2009, the group informed Spanish stock market regulator Commision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) that the standstill agreement has been extended accordingly. During this time, no further demands can be made on the group.

It seems the last few days have also seen a certain amount of progress in negotiations with the creditors. La Seda announced that an agreement had been reached on refinancing a loan of EUR 600m from 2006. In addition, the Portuguese bank Caixa Geral has apparently approved another bridging loan of EUR 10m to secure financing for the construction of a PTA facility in Sines / Portugal – see Plasteurope.com of 29.07.2009.

Things are likely to change for the shareholders as well. On the one hand, La Seda has decided to reduce capital by lowering the nominal value of the shares currently in circulation. The new nominal value is supposed to orient itself to a "sensible market value" of the shares. On the other hand, the company also wants to proceed with its planned capital increase by issuing new shares. And the talk is now of EUR 300m although the company had until now been looking at a capital increase of only half that sum, namely EUR 150m – see Plasteurope.com of 13.10.2009.