Offshore marine group
Swiber Holdings on Friday (July 29) took out an application to place itself and
its subsidiary Swiber Offshore Construction (SOC) under judicial management and
interim judicial management.
It had
announced its winding-up application on Thursday (July 28), sending shock waves
through the market.
Swiber
said that on Thursday, the directors and the provisional liquidators had
discussed with the company's major financial creditor, who indicated it was
supportive of an application for the company to place itself into judicial
management instead of liquidation.
On Friday, Swiber applied to
discharge the provisional liquidation order and to withdraw the winding up
application made on July 27.
While Swiber
did not name the major financial creditor, market observers speculate that it
could be DBS Bank given its $700 million exposure to the company.
Judicial
management - a court-supervised process - seeks to rehabilitate potentially
viable companies. A court-appointed official, or a judicial manager, would take
over the duties of the directors; and claims against the company would be
frozen to give him room to revamp the company's affairs.
In
comparison, winding up or liquidation is perceived as a last resort and the
amount recovered for creditors is often less.
Swiber
also made clarifications on earlier announcements regarding resignations. Mr
Tay Gim Sin Leonard remains as group chief financial officer, it clarified.
Mr Tay,
along with Mr Francis Wong Chin Sing, who resigned as group vice chairman, and
Mr Nitish Gupta, who resigned as a director of the company, continue to remain
as directors of certain subsidiaries of the company, it added.
The group
noted as well that it has, together with its subsidiaries received further
claims totalling about US$24.6 million.
As at
Friday, the total sum of claims received by the group is about US$50.5 million.
"The
company is currently seeking legal advice on the claims received by it and will
make further announcements as and when appropriate," it said.
Representative Image
Source: Straits Times
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