The majority of Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) Plc's creditors yesterday agreed to allow chief executive Keeree Kanjanapas to draft the rehabilitation plan for the operator of the Skytrain.

After a two-hour meeting at the Legal Execution Department, creditors who control 72.88 per cent of the company's Bt60 billion worth of debts voted in favour of Keeree's proposal.

Among the supporters were Deutsche Bank AG London, which owns Bt25.2 billion; Thailand Asset Management Corporation, Bt6.77 billion; and Siemens, Bt5.1 billion.

Other creditors, such as Siam Commercial Bank, which owns Bt4.6 billion; and International Finance Corp, Bt250 million, proposed that National Advisory Co Ltd complete the rehabilitation plan.

The rehabilitation planner will be officially appointed by the Central Bankruptcy Court (CBC) on August 21, the department said.

"So far, 16 creditors have claimed the rights to the Bt60 billion debts, but receivership officials would need to investigate the exact amount of debts that would go under the restructuring," said an official at the department.

The CBC earlier granted BTS approval to enter into the rehabilitation process, based on the company's information that it had Bt49 billion in debts against Bt4.8 billion in assets, plus Bt20 billion in accumulated losses and Bt6.7 billion in overdue interest expenses.

Under current conditions, BTS said there was a possibility that it could default if pressed by creditors for further repayments. BTS has been working with creditors to restructure the debts for four to five years, without success.

The company said it sees an urgent need to go into rehabilitation, as it wants to reach an agreement with creditors on the payment terms of the existing debts before expanding business.

Keeree said that the rehabilitation plan should be completed three months after court approval. He said he is also optimistic that within the first quarter of next year, the company would exit rehabilitation and seek a listing on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

"The rehabilitation plan is not difficult to complete as we have a small number of creditors. We will ask the creditors to cut the existing debts by half and convert the remaining debts to equity.

"I think the creditors would welcome the proposal as they would benefit hugely from the debt-to-equity conversion when the company is listed on the exchange," he said.

BTS, whose Skytrain now serves 470,000 commuters a day, up from 400,000 a year earlier, has filed a listing application with the Securities and Exchange Commission.