Singapore

Singapore is giving liquidators of insolvent companies a new tool to retrieve funds for bondholders and other creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Court-appointed managers will now be able to seek funding from investors unrelated to the case to pay the cost of pursuing claims, in exchange for part of the proceeds. That change came under the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act, which was passed by lawmakers on Oct. 1.

Hyflux Ltd., the embattled Singapore water-treatment and power company, is in advanced talks with at least two potential investors about taking a strategic equity stake in the group as part of a restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. The discussions with these investors are taking place concurrently with efforts to sell its desalination plant known as Tuaspring, its legal adviser WongPartnership LLP said in an update during a case management hearing in court Monday. Hyflux has an Oct. 15 deadline to sell the plant, which is Southeast Asia’s biggest.

Singapore-listed Noble Group Ltd faces a make-or-break shareholders’ meeting on Monday as investors vote on a $3.5 billion debt restructuring plan that its creditors and board say is vital to prevent insolvency, Reuters reported. The company, once a global commodity trader with ambitions to rival Glencore or Vitol, has shrunk to an Asian-centric business focused on coal and freight trading after it slashed hundreds of jobs and sold prized assets to cut debt.

A homegrown Singaporean company that owns one of the financial center’s three seawater desalination plants is struggling to stay afloat, a Bloomberg View reported. Whether Hyflux Ltd. sinks or swims will matter to creditors and shareholders. The strategic stakes, though, are far higher. Now that Singapore’s old foe Mahathir Mohamad is back as Malaysia’s prime minister, and once again threatening to renegotiate a 1962 agreement to supply raw water to the city-state, making sure the Hyflux plant is owned until 2038 by a friendly buyer could become an issue of national security.

Goodbye credit boom, hello insolvency limbo. In June, precision- engineering firm CW Advanced Technologies became the latest issuer to seek a court order to stave off creditors, after its plan to re-tap the bond market to redeem its first series of notes got quashed by poor market sentiment, the Business Times reported. Since November 2015, at least 13 issuers have defaulted on a total of 23 Singdollar bonds by missing coupon payments, failing to repay note holders at maturity, filing for judicial management, filing for bankruptcy protection and in one case breaching a financial covenant.

White Plains lawyer Michael E. Foreman has been appointed to help a Singapore company restructure $325 million in debt in a rare Chapter 15 cross-border bankruptcy, Westfair Business Publications reported. Blue Ocean Resources Pte. defaulted on notes due in 2020 and has filed a “scheme of arrangement” under the Companies Act in the Republic of Singapore. Blue Ocean is an investment and trading subsidiary of PT Central Proteina Prima Tbk, an aquaculture company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Creditors have approved the reorganization plan proposed in Singapore.

Noble Group improved the terms of its controversial $3.4 billion debt restructuring deal and won the support of its biggest shareholder as the commodity trader seeks to complete the vital transaction, Reuters reported. Singapore-listed Noble’s debt-for-equity swap has already won the backing of more than 83 percent of the holders of its senior debt but it also needs a majority of its shareholders to approve the restructuring. “The revised structure granting shareholders 15 percent equity in New Noble has my full support,” Noble founder Richard Elman said in Noble’s statement on Monday.

UTAC Holdings Ltd., the Singapore-based chip testing firm backed by Affinity Equity Partners and TPG, is exploring options for a sale of its business after completing a bond restructuring, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company met potential advisers in recent weeks to discuss options that could include an initial public offering or sale, according to the people, Bloomberg News reported. Its owners could seek a valuation of about $1 billion including debt from any exit, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

The Singapore Stock Exchange has asked Noble Group, the crisis-hit commodity trader, to appoint an independent adviser to review its proposed debt-for-equity swap that will see existing shareholders almost wiped out, the Financial Times reported. Under the proposed deal, about half of the company’s $3.5bn of senior debt will be swapped for equity. As a result, creditors will own around 70 per cent of the restructured company, while management will get 20 per cent. Existing shareholders will get just 10 per cent.