Citgo Share Auction: Creditors Oppose Terms of Elliott Affiliate’s Bid, Reports Reuters

By Marianna Parraga and Gary McWilliams

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Creditors seeking to recover proceeds from the auction of shares in the parent company of Citgo Petroleum expressed strong dissatisfaction on Tuesday with the terms of a conditional offer selected during the second bidding round in U.S. court.

An affiliate of Elliott Investment Management was announced on Friday as the presumptive winner of the share auction, which values the Venezuela-owned refining company Citgo at as much as $7.286 billion.

Crystallex, the firm that initially brought the case in 2017 and holds the highest-ranking claim against Citgo’s parent company, PDV Holding, argued that the terms proposed by Elliott’s Amber Energy would effectively render creditors—with a combined claim of $21.3 billion—"unlikely to ever be paid."

Amy Wolf, an attorney for ConocoPhillips, which has the largest claims in this case, stated that the sales process "is not ending in the way we all would have liked."