Adelphia bondholders' request to reconsider denial of exclusivity termination also denied

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Oct. 10 - Adelphia Communications Corp.'s bondholders' request to reconsider denial of the termination of the company's exclusive periods to file a plan of reorganization and solicit votes on the plan was denied on Tuesday in a bench decision filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

As previously reported, in his bench decision denying termination of the exclusive periods, judge Robert E. Gerber said Adelphia has proposed, jointly with its official committee of unsecured creditors, a reorganization plan that proposes a compromise of inter-creditor disputes "that have plagued this case for years."

Gerber said the plan follows weeks of court-ordered settlement efforts and has secured very substantial, but not universal, indications of potential approval.

"While I will say now and again that I don't regard decisions of this character as a mechanical exercise in counting noses (or tallying up dollars, in par amount, of claims held), I believe that the proposed plan plainly deserves to be put up for a vote," Gerber said in his decision.

While the settlement process for a time did not include bank lenders and unsecured creditors that were not players in the inter-debtor disputes, Gerber said Adelphia has now brought those parties in, or at least tried to do so, and that he disagrees with the bondholders' contentions that "the process that led up to the term sheet that underlies it was in any way unlawful or illegitimate."

Gerber said the proposed plan will go out for a vote and many creditors, particularly bondholders at the Adelphia parent level, have not been heard from, one way or the other.

"And at least for the relatively brief period of six to eight weeks during which we'll ascertain whether the joint plan has the requisite support and is confirmable, I will keep exclusivity in place," Gerber said in the filing.

Adelphia, a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based cable operator, filed for bankruptcy on June 25, 2002. Its Chapter 11 case number is 02-41729.

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