The indebted Mexican steel company Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) reported that a federal judge declared it in bankruptcy, a restructuring process in addition to the one it has had since 1999 with a repealed law. The company said that it is already challenging that determination in court.
In May 1999, AHMSA obtained legal protection from a judge to restructure its insolvency debts. This was under the now repealed Bankruptcy and Suspension of Payments Law by the Civil Judge of Monclova, Coahuila (the headquarters of AHMSA). However, in January 2023, that same court declared the company in bankruptcy proceedings for failing to comply with the restructuring agreed in 2016.
The Suspension of Payments Law, issued in 1943 and repealed in May 2000, prevented the auction of the company's assets. In addition, it prevented the recognition of new creditors.
Due to the above, some creditors requested from the authorities a debt restructuring process due to insolvency under the new Bankruptcy Law, in force since May 2000. Among these creditors are Transportes Especializados Bortoni (TEBSA), Unifin Financiera (also in bankruptcy ), a subsidiary in Mexico of the American Dell Technologies Inc., the freight forwarding company Setramex, among others.
The judicial authority (IFECOM), in charge of the new restructuring process, has already begun its task. In this regard, AHMSA informed the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) that it had already been "challenged in court by the company."
In a separate press release, the current spokesperson for AHMSA, Francisco Orduña, responded to the President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that he was implicitly rejecting, without justification, the agreement of the American financial company Argentem Creek Partners to buy the controlling share package of AHMSA .
The president said on Wednesday, July 12, that AHMSA's main shareholder, Alonso Ancira, has refused to sell the company. López Obrador said that if necessary, he himself will speak to the presidents of the boards of directors of Ternium and ArcelorMittal so that they buy AHMSA. This, to save the thousands of jobs generated by the steel company.
The AHMSA spokesman said that since "last week (the president) has in his hands the plan for financial restructuring and restart of operations presented by Argentem."
He said that the working capital of $200 million to restart steel production, stopped since the beginning of the year, is guaranteed and will be injected into AHMSA until "the new shareholders have approval of the restructuring plan, which contemplates establishing deadlines for payment of tax debts and with parastatal entities, the only way to guarantee the viability of the proposal”
In a third separate press release, the company reported that due to a lack of capital, it shut down blast furnace #5 and plans to start the process of firing blast furnace #6, which is of lower capacity. Unofficially #5 has an annual capacity of 2.4 million metric tons (mt) of pig iron and #6 has an annual capacity of 1.4 million mt.