MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish Abengoa (MC:ABGek) has asked its creditors for a loan of up to 750 million euros ($843 million) to keep it afloat while its lenders discuss a financial plan to avoid it becoming Spain's biggest bankruptcy, a source close to the talks said.
"Abengoa has asked for 650 million to 750 million euros in additional liquidity," the source said on Wednesday, adding that this was on top of around 160 million euros Abengoa is requesting from bondholders.
KPMG, currently acting as intermediary between the engineering firm and its creditors, must now analyse the financial and industrial plan, which will be presented to creditors and bondholders between Feb. 20 and Feb. 25, the source said.
The Seville-based company must agree on a full restructuring plan with creditors before the end of March, or enter into a full-blown insolvency process.
A source previously told Reuters that Abengoa aims to reduce its corporate debt to around 3 billion euros from 9 billion euros, implying creditors would have to accept a loss of about 70 percent on their investment and swap debt for shares.
A spokeswoman for Abengoa declined to comment.
Abengoa, which has struggled with its debts for more than a year, triggered pre-insolvency proceedings in November after a key investor backed away from a plan to inject new cash.
Creditors granted a 106-million-euro emergency loan in December, but the banks have been unwilling to provide further interim funds to pay for, amongst other costs, wages for Abengoa's 24,000 employees, until they see a breakdown of debts.
Meanwhile, talks are restarting between Abengoa and its main bondholders, which own 40 percent of its 5 billion euros of bonds and are represented by U.S. investment bank Houlihan Lokey, on the injection of 160 million euros, the source said.
Abengoa faces resistance from bondholders and creditors over either liquidity injection as the company has already used its most valuable assets as collateral against earlier loans.
Class B shares (MC:ABGek) rose 2.5 percent to 0.166 euros at 1110 GMT.
($1 = 0.8893 euros)