PAL Holdings on Wednesday addressed reports about a planned bankruptcy protection filing, saying it has "not approved any definite option," CNNPhilippines.com reported. In a disclosure to the local bourse, the operator of Philippine Airlines clarified a news report stating it eyes the filing by June 29, saying they are "not aware" of the date referred to.
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Philippine Airlines Inc.’s parent company posted a record loss last year, reflecting the “extraordinary” impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the carrier, Bloomberg News reported. PAL Holdings Inc. reported a 71.8 billion pesos ($1.48 billion) loss in calender 2020, compared to a 10.3 billion peso shortfall the year before, the company said in a stock exchange filing Thursday. In the first quarter of this year, its loss narrowed to 8.6 billion pesos from 9.4 billion pesos a year earlier.
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Philippine Airlines Inc. is in talks with plane lessors about reducing its fleet size and has told them it’s considering a chapter 11 filing in the U.S. to carry out a restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. The airline could return at least two Airbus SE A350s to lessors and four of the 10 Boeing Co. 777s in its fleet. Two A350s are in the process of being taken back by aircraft lessors and will be redeployed to other carriers. Prior to the negotiations, Philippine Airlines had six A350s. One lessor reached an agreement with the airline for it to keep a 777 and an A330.
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Airline maintenance provider Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP) will lay off 300 employees in April due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry that forced some of its clients into bankruptcy, The Star reported. "This decision comes after careful study and consideration of the business situation as a result of the pandemic, its effects on the aviation industry," LTP president and CEO Elmar Lutter said in a letter to employees dated Feb. 11.
The Philippine Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said that the government is seeking a new 540 billion-peso ($11.2 billion) loan from the central bank to aid in pandemic relief measures, Bloomberg News reported. The request for a new loan was transmitted to the central bank after the government repaid its previous debt of the same amount due on Tuesday, de Leon said. This is the third time that the government has requested support from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The monetary authority extended advances of 300 billion pesos in March and 540 billion pesos in October.
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Philippine authorities are probing the financial transactions of a law office and a tour operator for possible connections to Wirecard, the collapsed German payments firm, and its former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek, a government official said, the Financial Times reported.
A Philippines-based firm seeking to recapitalise the insolvent and in-receivership Australia-listed Asian casino operator Silver Heritage Group Ltd, is said to have obtained from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board, a “letter of no objection” to the Philippine firm acquiring – via a subsidiary – a 92-percent interest in the casino firm, GGRAsia reported. The news was given in a Wednesday filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange by DFNN Inc. The latter company is said to own 18.98 percent of HatchAsia Inc, the firm seeking to recapitalise Silver Heritage.
The full extent of the coronavirus pandemic-inflicted damage on Philippine companies and the local financial system will only begin to manifest itself over the next couple of years, as there is always “a lag time before you see the dead bodies,” INQUIRER.net reported. As such, banks and their large corporate borrowers will likely need to enter into contentious and difficult negotiations in the medium term to rehabilitate loans that would otherwise go into default as a result of the ongoing public health crisis. “[Banks’] problem loans have almost doubled in July. Was that the peak?
BDO Unibank Inc., the Philippines’ largest lender by assets, posted its first loss in more than a decade after bolstering provisions for bad loans due to the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The bank said its net loss totaled 4.48 billion pesos ($91 million) in the three months ended June, compared with profit of 10.4 billion pesos a year earlier. It booked provisions of 22.4 billion pesos in the first half, in anticipation of potential delinquencies stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.
Local bank creditors of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines (HHIC-Phil), the local unit of Korea’s shipbuilding giant Hanjin, expect resolution of the shipbuilder’s debt within the year. The local Hanjin owes five local banks a total of $412 million, considered as the biggest corporate default in the country, the Manila Bulletin reported. Among the creditor banks, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) has the biggest loan exposure of $140 million followed by state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines with an estimated $80 million.