An Arch Coal Inc. creditor sued a group of lenders it says is seeking to block a plan to swap the struggling miner’s existing bonds for new securities with longer maturities, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. GSO Special Situations Master Fund LP, a New York-based investment fund that holds some of Arch’s unsecured notes, accused the defendants of making “improper and legally unsupportable efforts” to block the swap. The deadline for the exchange is Sept. 23. A group of senior lenders — including Oaktree Capital Group LLC, Archview Investment Group and Caspian Capital, which claim to own a majority of Arch’s $1.9 billion in bank loans — have moved to block the deal on concern that it would harm the value of the higher-ranking debt they hold. The lenders said that the bondholders agreeing to the swap would receive preferential treatment, violating provisions of the loan pact.
