Mexico City.- The shares of TV Azteca closed yesterday with a fall of 31.3 percent, to 49 cents, after creditors requested that the company be declared bankrupt under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Law in the United States.
In August 1993, Ricardo Salinas Pliego bought Imevisión from the federal government for 650 million dollars to create TV Azteca, according to the businessman himself in a video uploaded to YouTube in April 2021.
Yesterday, after the collapse of its share and taking the wholesale exchange rate of 18.61 pesos per dollar, its market capitalization was 237.8 million dollars, that is, 63 percent less in nominal terms.
If inflation registered since the purchase is discounted, the value is one thousand 357.2 million dollars today, a real drop of 82 percent.
On Tuesday it was announced that as a result of the default in the payment of dollar bonds in 2021, three creditors claiming 63.3 million dollars filed for bankruptcy of the company before the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Jesús Rodríguez Ambriz, president of the Mexican Association of Public Accountants, warned that if TV Azteca does not respond within the 20-day period set to its shareholders, it may lose the value of the bond issue.
In this period, the company can present the financial information pending the fourth quarter.
“No more financial statements have been published because they are undergoing a restructuring, because they are allowed by law in Mexico, in order to pay their debts that are already due,” Rodríguez clarified.
The bankruptcy request was made by the funds Plenisfer Investments SICAV-Destination Value Total Return, from Luxembourg; the American Cyrus Opportunities Master Fund II Ltd and Sandpiper Limited, of Grand Cayman.
