Advisers and bankers to the debt-laden cable business, Telewest, will receive a pounds 100m bonanza in fees when bondholders take over the company in return for forgiving pounds 4bn of debt.

Telewest yesterday applied to the American regulator, the securities and exchange commission, to list its new, less indebted company on Nasdaq. The filing revealed the extent of the fees banks connected to the deal will receive.

Lawyers and corporate financiers will be paid at least pounds 63m, the documents revealed. The amount includes fees to advisers to all relevant parties – banks, bondholders and the company itself.

The cable operator will still be left with pounds 2bn of bank debt, and the banks have charged at least pounds 30m to renew the facility, which still has not been finalised. Up to pounds 15m more may have to be paid, depending on the company’s performance.

The new terms of the facility – if it is agreed – will put severe restrictions on the company, with financial targets restricting Telewest’s capital expenditure. The credit arrangement will expire in December 2005. Projections in yesterday’s filing said that revenues for 2005 would be pounds 1.5bn and debt would be reduced to pounds 1.6bn.

The filing was the latest step in a long-winded process that will leave Telewest shareholders with only 1.5% of the company. The bondholders owning the remainder include Liberty Media, the vehicle of US cable tycoon John Malone, and hedge fund manager Bill Huff, who has been a vociferous critic throughout the debt restructuring.

Managing director Charles Burdick will be chief executive of the US-listed company and is the only current director who will remain on the board. He will retain his salary of pounds 500,000. If he is ousted he will be entitled to one year’s pay as a golden farewell.

Chairman Cob Stenham will stay on as a consultant and senior adviser to the new company, which will be named Telewest Global. The new board will consist primarily of the bondholders’ nominees.

Should the SEC approve the process, it is expected that further details will be posted to shareholders in January, with creditors voting on schemes of arrangement and shareholders voting at an extraordinary meeting in March.

Telewest said yesterday that if the restructuring was not completed it was likely the company would initiate insolvency proceedings.

It is widely expected that once the company completes its restructuring it will seek a merger with NTL, the largest British cable company, which recently completed a debt-for-equity swap.

Denise Kingsmill, the outgoing deputy chairman of the Competition Commission, and Anthony Rice will resign from the board as non- executive directors.

Earlier this month Stan Yassukovich, the City grandee, resigned as an independent director of the company over the terms of the restructuring. He said there was poor corporate governance, and that banks and new Telewest shareholders would be worse off.