Dubai’s Limitless Asks Creditors For More Time To Repay $1.2bn Debt

Dubai government-owned property firm Limitless is asking creditors for more time to repay a $1.2 billion debt facility, its chairman said on Tuesday.

Limitless, a former property arm of Dubai World, restructured the Islamic debt facility in October 2012 after several maturity extensions by a syndicate of lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland and Emirates NBD.

Under the deal, the company was given an initial grace period before scheduled repayments between 2014 and 2016. The revised loan carries an interest rate of 175 basis points over the London interbank offered rate, according to Reuters data.

Although the Dubai property market has rebounded in recent months, with prices up 33 percent year-on-year according to consultancy JLL, Limitless chairman Ali Rashid Lootah said the company now felt it would need more time to make payments under the 2012 restructuring agreement.

“We are revising our business plan. We need some more time. We are in discussion with banks and they are very cooperative,” Lootah told Reuters.

“We have been talking to the banks for a while now and they know the situation. There will be delays. We have a payment plan but this may just be shifted slightly from the earlier schedule.”

While Lootah wouldn’t elaborate on why the company was seeking a new repayment timetable, he said it was “still healthy and still in good shape”.