Creditors of Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd. say bondholders are preparing a rival turnaround plan for the shipping company, which has pledged itself to a bank-backed Chapter 11 plan.

Excel's proposed plan is designed to preserve the control of owner Gabriel Panayotides while leaving convertible bondholders who are owed $100 million and unsecured creditors with a slim and chancy recovery.

In a new court filing, Excel's official committee of unsecured creditors protested Excel's bid to lock in senior lender control by way of bankruptcy financing and said they would prefer to wait to see what the bondholders propose to do for them.

"The committee anticipates that certain of the convertible noteholders will submit a competing proposal that will infuse capital into the reorganized Debtors, will not commit the parties to a specific management team and, importantly, will comply with applicable bankruptcy law," lawyers for the official committee wrote in papers filed Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N. Y.

A lawyer for the company was not immediately available Wednesday to respond to the critique.

The reference to "applicable bankruptcy law" highlights a key argument Excel will face as it pushes its plan through the courts. The Bankruptcy Code generally prohibits shareholders from retaining their equity unless all creditors are being paid in full or have agreed to a deal.

Excel's Chapter 11 plan offers 3% payment to investors in convertible bonds and trade creditors but would leave the company's current management and owners in place in exchange for a $30 million cash infusion.

As the operator of a fleet of vessels that haul dry cargo around the world, Excel in July joined a flotilla of troubled shipping companies that sought bankruptcy protection due to global economic slowing. The Chapter 11 filing followed a failed effort to get widespread creditor votes to back the company's emergence proposal.

Hints that a competing proposal is in the works came in papers filed by unsecured creditors to challenge a bankruptcy financing package that they say would give lenders a shot a grabbing the sole piece of Excel property that is not already signed over as collateral, the MV Christine.

Most of the banks that hold Excel's senior debt are commercial banks whose loans to the company were made at least a year ago. They include HSH Nordbank AG, Deutsche Bank AG, BNP Paribas S.A. and Credit Suisse AG. The distressed debt specialist on the senior lender steering committee is a fund run by Oaktree Capital Management, which bought into the debt earlier this year.

To fund continued operations while in Chapter 11, Excel needs lender permission to use its own cash, which is part of the collateral package protecting the senior lenders' $771 million worth of loans.

According to the creditors committee, lenders have negotiated extreme protections for themselves in the cash collateral arrangement, including ongoing interest and legal fees, as well as insulation against anyone probing the validity of their claims.

An attorney for the senior lending syndicate was not immediately available to comment Wednesday on the critique, which was filed in advance of a Monday court hearing.

Earlier, an unofficial committee of bondholders had raised similar challenges to a temporary cash-use agreement between Excel and its banks.

Four members of the bondholders group anchor seats on the official committee of unsecured creditors, and the separate bondholder committee has been disbanded.

Keeping the MV Christine out of the banks' reach has been a key focus of both groups. Excel's plan offers unsecured creditors a share of cash to be generated by the vessel. It is only partially owned by Excel and the entity that owns the rest of the ship, Robertson Maritime Investments LLC, has promised a court fight for control.

According to Robertson, Excel engaged in restructuring maneuvers before filing for bankruptcy protection that allegedly justify stripping it of control of the vessel. Excel denies wrongdoing, and says it merely made an intercompany transfer that did not transgress on the Christine joint venture agreement.