KUWAIT: A committee representing most of the creditors of Kuwait's Investment Dar has threatened to quit if the company doesn't consider its new debt restructuring plan, Dar said on Sunday. Investment Dar, the Islamic firm which owns half of British luxury carmaker Aston Martin, said in a statement that the plan was not acceptable to the firm and it will now go to court to resolve the dispute. Dar has been trying to restructure about 1 billion dinars ($3.55 billion) in debt since last year after the investment firm was hard hit by the global financial crisis. It applied in March for support under a government facility set up for troubled companies as part of a debt restructuring. Dar said in the statement that the coordinating committee of debtors now wants the firm to "give up 90 percent of the company in return for less than half of the debt." In December, Dar said it had reached a deal with 80 percent of its creditors. The government facility would help it get consent of the rest of the creditors on its restructuring plan. Al-Rai daily reported Nov 10 the country's central bank had rejected the restructuring plan, but the bank has not made any official statement. Dar defaulted on a $100 million Islamic debt issue last year — the first major public Islamic instrument in the region to do so — and has said it may sell some assets to meet its obligations.
