By Luciana Magalhaes
SAO PAULO, March 11 (Reuters) - Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer Raizen said on Wednesday it had reached an out-of-court agreement with creditors and bondholders to restructure approximately 65.1 billion reais ($12.61 billion) in debt obligations.
The company, a joint venture between London-listed oil major Shell and Brazilian conglomerate Cosan, had been in months-long talks seeking ways to strengthen its capital structure and tackle its significant debt burden.
Raizen said
in a securities filing that creditors holding 47% of its unsecured debt had already endorsed the plan. The company will have 90 days to gain sufficient support for final approval, after which the new payment terms will apply to 100% of the covered claims.
The world's largest sugar producer, Raizen had been facing mounting pressure due to a combination of elevated capital expenditures, unfavorable weather, and wildfires that damaged harvests and reduced cane-crushing volumes.
It had signaled last week that it could pursue an out-of-court restructuring to resolve its debt crisis, which had previously led the company to flag "significant uncertainty" about its ability to continue operations.
According to Wednesday's filing, the restructuring plan could involve shareholder capitalization, the conversion of part of its outstanding credits into equity, new debt issuances, and asset sales.
Raizen said the agreement does not affect obligations toward customers, suppliers, distributors or other commercial partners, and that operations would continue to run normally.
($1 = 5.1639 reais)
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes; Editing by Gabriel Araujo and Pooja Desai)
