Iiti’s motor sports center Kymi Ring has a lot of work to do to avoid bankruptcy once and for all. The payment program for corporate restructuring is tough for many creditors.
The district court of Päijät-Häme has approved the corporate restructuring program of the Iiti motor sports center Kymi Ring on Wednesday. The Kymi Ring company now has 14 days to collect the necessary money. The amount required is three million. Mobility Properties, Kymi Ring’s largest owner, was founded last summer in order to save Kymi Ring.
Mobility Properties is ready to subscribe to most of the shares. Most of the current shareholders have announced that they do not want to increase their stake in the company.
If the share issue is not successful, the company has plan B, which in the restructuring program is called realization restructuring. It means that the company is obliged to sell all its assets in a fairly short time frame. Only after it fails does bankruptcy lie ahead.
There’s more to Monttuu than motorsports
After securing financing, business recovery begins, and that requires profitable operations on the track.
– The track must be sold full of events and activities. You can’t keep prices so high there that enthusiasts can’t afford to come there.
According to Kivisaari, not only motorsport events are organized at the track, but also concerts, festivals and functional fairs. The training and testing center would enable year-round operation. The focus would be on electric mobility and alternative fuels.
– The event calendar for next summer will be published possibly in the middle of March, when our announcement is ready. There are planned events starting in May.
However, Kivisaari dreams of big, mega-class events.
– It’s not worth building such a cloud castle that Kymi Ring has some mega motorsport event next summer, but we start with smaller events and fix things piece by piece.
According to Kivisaari, the track itself no longer requires large investments. Instead, the pit building and pit field require finishing.
Listen to the interview with Kymi Ring oy and Mobility Properties board chairman Ilkka Kivisaaari:
Disputed receivables at Lahti Events
A total of approximately 22 million euros in debts have been calculated for Kymi Ring in the restructuring program. The largest creditors, Nordea and Finnvera, will receive 100% of their claims.
Instead, almost 90 percent of unsecured debts are cut. There are several such creditors. For example, 200,000 euros of Lahti Events’ debt of two million will be paid over seven years. In addition to this, Lahti Events has a remarkably large amount of disputed debts, the amount and grounds of which are disputed.
Lahti Events, the event company of the city of Lahti, had agreed with Kymi Ring for the event production of MotoGP races.
The board of Lahti Events decides on possible further actions. According to CEO Emilia Mäe, Lahti Events Oy does not consider KymiRing Oy’s restructuring program to be credible or realistic.
– In its presented form, the program does not solve the company’s problems, in which case its confirmation could prolong the processing of the case and cause additional damage to creditors, writes Mäki in his e-mail message.
A demand of 1.4 million for the municipality of Iiti
– It’s good that the situation is starting to clear up. It is in the interest of both Kouvola and the Lahti region that the track is put in working order and a new phase of development is reached in the region.
In the renovation program, there is a demand for repayment of 1.4 million euros to the municipality of Iiti for land use. The liquidator has filed a recovery action against the municipality of Iiti and A.Ahlström Kiinteistöt company. In 2021, the Kymi Ring company paid the costs of the highway junction arrangement to the municipality of Iiti. According to the mayor of Iit, Salonen, the lawsuit is now resting and negotiations will be held during the spring on how to proceed in the matter.
– Our point of view here is different from the liquidator’s. A. Ahlström is the other party here as the original land owner. If the municipality of Iiti has to pay, we will then turn to Ahlström in the matter, says Salonen.
*Added on 22 February 2023 at 15:49 Lahti Events CEO Emilia Mäki’s comments.*