Singapore

A wording on the “full release” of claims by senior creditors could absolve Noble legal debt claims, Singapore Business Review reported. According to Bloomberg, experts are raising concerns about Noble’s debt restructuring plan. On page 5 of Noble’s restructuring term sheet, a clause states that the arrangement provides the “full release of any and all other claims” that any senior creditor may have against Noble Group, its management, directors, advisers, agents and representatives in relation to its existing senior debt.

Noble Group Ltd. posted a full-year loss of $4.94 billion for 2017 and warned that further writedowns may yet be in store as the commodity trader battles to survive, with executives pressing ahead with a debt-for-equity rescue plan that’s facing increased resistance, Bloomberg News reported. “Further additional non-cash valuation adjustments may be recorded,” the company said in a statement in Singapore. The final figure compares with a range of $4.78 billion to $4.98 billion given in a warning last week.

Global A&T Electronics, a Singapore-based chip assembler that took on hefty debt a decade ago through a buyout by TPG Capital and Affinity Equity Partners, filed for bankruptcy as a 2013 debt exchange came back to haunt it, Bloomberg News reported. The chip-assembler listed debt of more than $1 billion and assets of over $500 million in Chapter 11 papers filed Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

Singapore has made “a good start” in its bid to become a debt restructuring hub in the region, with six workout cases filed before its courts after it adopted U.S. Chapter 11-like incentives in local company laws this year, a senior government official said. Indonesian developer PT Bakrieland Development is set to complete its group restructuring after a plan by its unit BLD Investments Pte. was sanctioned by a local judge earlier this month in the first of such cases, Bloomberg News reported.

Noble Group Ltd.’s crisis escalated as Moody’s Investors Service Inc. flagged an elevated risk of default after the embattled Hong Kong-based commodity trader warned of a quarterly loss of as much as $1.8 billion and announced more asset sales, Bloomberg News reported. “The further expected deterioration in Noble’s financial results in the second quarter of 2017 suggests that default risk will remain elevated,” Gloria Tsuen, a Moody’s vice president and senior analyst, said in a statement as the company’s shares tanked in Singapore.

Noble Group Ltd. abandoned its global commodity-trading ambitions and set out a plan to fall back on its Asian roots as a second-quarter loss of as much as $1.8 billion challenges its survival, Bloomberg News reported. The trading house’s bonds slumped after it warned of a quarterly loss triple its market value and said it would sell almost all of its businesses outside Asia. The announcement all but ends hopes Noble could survive as a major force in global commodities trading by attracting a “white knight” investor to inject fresh capital.

Singapore is ranked the second most competitive economy globally by the World Economic Forum, and is actually faster than most other countries in resolving insolvencies involving assets of all kinds, according to the World Bank, Bloomberg News reported. But when it comes to the city’s bond market in particular, resolutions have been slower than in some other major markets, according to restructuring advisers. The speed of such cases is a key focus for investors after the nation suffered an unprecedented S$1.35 billion ($992 million) of local note defaults since November 2015.

Noble Group Ltd. shares slid Tuesday on the first day of trading after Fitch Ratings cut the embattled commodities trader’s credit rating to a score indicating that a default is possible, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s stock dropped 2.8 percent as of 3:04 p.m. in Singapore after a public holiday Monday. It earlier fell as much as 7.6 percent. Fitch slashed its rating late Friday by two steps to CCC, its third downgrade since the middle of last month.

Around US$300m of a US$1.1bn revolving credit loan for Noble Group has been sold to funds in the secondary loan market as banks seek to limit their losses as the company faces a potential restructuring, banking sources said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The struggling commodities trader is trying to extend a separate US$2bn loan as finding an investor to recapitalise the business looks increasingly difficult, leaving debt restructuring or bankruptcy as the most likely options, several sources said.

Singapore’s bond market has seen unprecedented defaults, and a slump in oil prices along with a weak property market are threatening to increase nonpayments this year, Bloomberg News reported. The following is a list of four firms that have Singapore dollar-denominated bonds maturing by the end of next year, and that Bloomberg’s default-risk monitor suggests have the highest odds of failing to repay obligations in the next 12 months among the nation’s companies that aren’t restructuring their debt.