Singapore

Singapore is seeking to enhance its position as a center for debt restructuring by giving its insolvency law some of the powers of the U.S. bankruptcy code’s chapter 11, just as companies worldwide default on bonds at the fastest pace since the global financial crisis, Bloomberg News reported today. The government has “broadly accepted” 17 recommendations submitted by a committee after a yearlong review, the Ministry of Law said in a statement.

Singapore said it would overhaul its system to combat money laundering, weeks after it ordered the local arm of a Swiss bank to shut down operations in relation to a laundering and bribery probe, The Wall Street Journal reported. Monday’s announcement comes as prosecutors in Singapore investigate what they said last month was the city-state’s largest-ever money-laundering investigation, involving embattled Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., known as 1MDB.

Embattled commodity trader Noble Group announced the surprise resignation of CEO Yusuf Alireza on Monday and said it planned to sell a U.S. unit to bolster its balance sheet as it seeks to regain investor confidence, the International New York Times reported. Alireza, a former Goldman Sachs banker had steered Asia's biggest commodity trader to sell assets, cut business lines and take big writedowns as it battled weak commodity markets and the fallout from an accounting dispute. "With this transformation process now largely complete, Mr.

Chinese banks are justifiably on investors' radar for shuffling some of their more wobbly credit risk into wealth management products. However, when it comes to misery camped off balance sheet, the People's Republic has company elsewhere in Asia: More than 11 percent of the bad assets reported by Singapore's largest lender aren't loans at all but contingent liabilities, Bloomberg News reported. In just one year, the difference between ``nonperforming assets'' and ``nonperforming loans'' at DBS Group Holdings has more than quadrupled to S$355 million ($257 million).

Singapore-listed oil and gas company Linc Energy Ltd owes creditors A$289.4 million ($210.28 million) and should be wound up, according to its administrators. The company entered into voluntary administration a month ago, suffering from debt woes amid a slump in energy prices. Administrators PPB Advisory released a report on Friday recommending the company be liquidated. "We recommend that it is in the creditors' interests that the company be wound up," the report said.

Commodities trader Noble Group Ltd. on Thursday swung to a net loss of $1.67 billion for the 2015 fiscal year, its worst annual financial performance since its Singapore listing in 1997, largely due to an impairment charge related to its coal assets, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company’s performance is the latest sign of weakness in the commodities trading industry. Lower demand from China and a stubbornly slow pace of recovery in the global economy have hit companies like Noble, which make their money as middlemen between producers and consumers of commodities.

COSCO Corporation (Singapore) took a beating after its shares resumed trading on Monday, December 14. Investors punished the shipping company after a much-awaited privatisation deal with its parent company fell through last week, Singapore Business Review reported. COSCO shares have been suspended from trading since August 11, after it was reported that its majority shareholder Cosco Group is eyeing a privatisation exercise for the struggling shipping company.

Singapore’s bond market is bracing for the latest unfortunate export from Indonesia: debt defaults, Bloomberg News reported. The city state, shrouded in smog from fires in its neighbor, is also starting to feel the impact of that nation’s currency woes. Indonesian phone retailer PT Trikomsel Oke’s Singapore-dollar bonds plunged to record lows last week after it blamed a weak rupiah when flagging a possible bond restructuring that would be the local market’s first in six years.

Jurong Aromatics Corp (JAC), which operates a large petrochemicals complex in Singapore, has gone into receivership because of debt problems, according to its restructuring firm and a filing with Singapore's accounting authority. JAC's debt problems mounted in recent months after it halted production in December to fix a technical issue. The company is the latest victim of a global commodities rout which has seen a Japanese shipper filing for bankruptcy on Tuesday and lower profits at global trading firm Louis Dreyfus.

Jurong Aromatics Corp, operator of one of the world's largest petrochemical plants, cannot service its interest payments and is negotiating a debt restructuring with bankers amid a plunge in oil prices, people familiar with the situation said, The Straits Times reported. Operations at the US$2.4 billion (S$3.4 billion) plant have stalled since December as the Singapore-based group remains locked in talks with lenders including BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered, as well as suppliers Glencore, BP and SK Energy, the sources said.