BDO offers to chase up Iraq debts
Mid-tier firm BDO Stoy Hayward has joined forces with an investment bank to set up a committee of trade creditors looking to recover debts owed by Iraq.
Link: Pressure on Big Four to halt Iraq plans (
The war-torn country owes creditors in 40 countries an estimated $127bn (£75.5bn), according to the FT, with around £13bn owed to trade creditors.
BDO will work in partnership with Turan Corporation, a Boston-based investment bank, in drawing up procedures for recovering the debts.
In an appeal to creditors to join the committee, BDO partner Peter Daniel said trade creditors who did not join a committee ‘for strength in numbers’ would find themselves at the back of the queue.
Two-thirds of the debt is owed to states in the Gulf, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but trade creditors include corporations like Hyundai in South Korea
BDO claims to have the experience in the Middle East to handle the project, after acting as lead-advisors to the United Nations compensation committee following the first Gulf war in 1990.
The exact size of the country’s debt is expected to take two years to calculate, but it is expected to be substantially reduced following a US initiative led by Iraq envoy James Baker.