Asia Pacific

Medium-size South Korean yard Daehan Shipbuilding, which has a huge bulker and products-tanker orderbook involving high-profile owners, has filed for court receivership, TradeWinds reported. The DSME-managed builder’s application to the Gwangju District Court early last week was based on a more than $50m claim, including interest accrued, by a shipowner and involving charter contracts signed by its sister company Daehan Merchant Marine, also known as Daehan Shipping. Hong Kong-based Goldbeam is said to be the company making the claim against Daehan Shipbuilding.

Malaysian state investor Khazanah Nasional Bhd plans to take Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) private as the first step in a major restructuring of the loss-making airline following the disappearance of its Flight MH370, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. A de-listing would pave the way for Khazanah to revive the ailing carrier, possibly by selling off its profitable engineering, airport services or budget airline units, trimming its bloated payroll and installing a new management team.

Nepal Insolvency Practitioners´ Association (NIPA) in association with Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) is organizing a two-day seminar on ´Insolvency Law: Local Issues, Global Views” in a bid to discuss the country´s insolvency law, República reported. According to the organizers, the seminar, which will begin in Kathmandu on July 8, will dwell on legal frameworks, international practices on the resolution of failing banks and financial institutions (BFIs) and insurance companies, liquidation, and the roles of various stakeholders in the insolvency process, among others.

Kathmandu founder Jan Cameron’s chain of discount ­retail stores has fallen into receivership for the third time in five years, putting more than 2500 jobs at risk, The Australian reported. Control of DSG Holdings Australia, the company behind discount retail chains Crazy Clarks and Sam’s Warehouse, was yesterday put into the hands of receivers David Winterbottom and Rahul Goyal of corporate advisory firm KordaMentha Restructuring.

Chinese regulators increased banks’ capacity to lend money and bolster the slowing economy by changing the way loan-to-deposit ratios are devised, Bloomberg News reported. Banks from today can include in the calculation negotiable certificates of deposit sold to companies or individuals, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement yesterday. They can also exclude loans advanced to small enterprises and the rural sector that are backed by bonds, the CBRC said. Bank lending is capped at no more than 75 percent of deposits to prevent an overextension of credit.

In the latest sign of the mounting risks to China’s debt market, a bank for the first time ever reportedly disclosed the default on a loan by a local government financing vehicle, Fox Business News reported. Over the weekend, the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese-language newspaper, reported Qilu Bank in Shandong Province told investors in its 2013 annual report that the Urban Construction and Comprehensive Development Company of Licheng District, Jinan City (located on China’s east coast) defaulted on a bank loan, according to Nomura.

About 19.7 percent of the subsidiaries of Korean conglomerates are with impaired capital, or have a debt ratio of over 400 percent, BusinessKorea reported. According to management evaluation firm CEO Score, out of the 1,418 subsidiaries of the 47 business groups with an asset size of at least 5 trillion won (US$4.94 billion), a total of 279 companies were categorized into a group of marginal firms and subject to cross shareholding restrictions. Out of those, 110 had impaired capital and 169 of them had a debt ratio exceeding 400 percent.

Australia’s insolvency laws, and the question of whether it is time to reconsider a chapter 11 style, have inadvertently been put back on the agenda by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s rogue financial planning scandal, Financial Review reported. It almost looked like an afterthought, but the last of 61 recommendations in last week’s Senate committee report into how the corporate regulator handled the CBA cases touches on an issue that has been the subject of some high-level discussions behind closed doors lately.

China’s chief auditor discovered 94.4 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) of loans backed by falsified gold transactions, adding to signs of possible fraud in commodities financing deals, Bloomberg News reported. Twenty-five bullion processors in China, the biggest producer and consumer of gold, made a combined profit of more than 900 million yuan from the loans, according to a report on the National Audit Office’s website. Public security authorities are also probing alleged fraud at Qingdao Port, where copper and aluminum stockpiles may have been pledged multiple times as collateral for loans.

Distressed debt funds are raising cash to seek greater opportunities in China, where Standard & Poor’s says corporate borrowing topped the U.S. last year, Bloomberg News reported. Planned commitments to funds investing in Chinese and other Asian troubled assets are set to surpass $2 billion this year, up from $303 million in 2013, data from researcher Preqin Ltd. show. Morningside Group Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong plans a $103 million vehicle, Preqin said. Guangzhou-based Shoreline Capital Management Ltd.