Kuwait's troubled Global Investment House on Thursday signed a debt restructuring plan with 53 creditor banks, under which it obtained new credit worth $1.73 billion, the company said. The new Islamic and conventional loans, payable over three years, were granted at an interest rate that is 1.5 percent above the discount rate and increases by one additional percentage point annually, the statement said. Global, one of Kuwait's leading investment firms, began defaulting on all its debts in December last year. The new agreement means the company is no longer in default, said the statement posted on the website of the Bahrain Stock Exchange. The company will repay the new credit facilities through an organized sale of some of its main investments, it said. If the company fails to repay $700 million to creditors after two years, Global has agreed to transfer the debts into stocks in the company, the statement added. Global has been hard hit by the international financial crisis, which forced it to default on its short-term loans that were originally estimated at around $3 billion.
