If a creditor decides to extend credit, that creditor knows that they won't get paid until after the liens previously recorded are paid off.
Unless Global Crossing's creditors extend the deadline, Hutchison and Singapore Technologies would forfeit the right to a breakup fee they were to receive if another company eventually outbid them.
Officials sought to end rumors arising from the refusal of creditors to extend fresh credit to the company.
That may include negotiating with creditors to extend their debt or to swap that debt for a stake in the company.
And so increasing doses of austerity were administered while the debt grew larger, forcing creditors to extend more loans in exchange for even more austerity.
Air Canada, based in Montreal, asked an Ontario court on Tuesday to extend protection from its creditors by 30 days to May 14, to "stabilize its restructuring efforts".
People who get into debt trouble, commonplace in Japan's moribund economy, also sometimes hire them as muscle to get creditors to extend easier terms.
Ireland has accumulated significant cash buffers under the programme, helped by the decision taken earlier this year by European creditors to extend the maturities on loans granted to Ireland.
The agreements with Warnaco's creditors will extend the maturity dates of its $500 million trade credit and $600 million bridge loan until August 2002.
Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, who was also at the meeting, said there seemed to be a willingness on the part of both the state and private creditors to extend credit to St . Vincents while it tried to restructure.
