Restructuring & Insolvency

Exponential growth in trade and commerce across South East Asia has led to increasing complexity and challenges in cross-border restructuring and insolvency cases in the region.  Rajah & Tann Asia provides an unrivalled platform to meet such challenges.   We are now working on many of the largest and most complex insolvency and restructuring cases in the region, many of them with a strong cross-border dimension.  In addition to our continuing work in headline cases such as Lehman Brothers, MF Global, Nortel, and TT International, our recent deals include:

Insolvency Regimes 

• Liquidation of Dynamic Oil Trading - one of the most high-profile insolvencies in the shipping industry in Singapore in recent times, as part of the global collapse of the O.W. Bunker group which had entities spanning jurisdictions including Denmark, Hong Kong, US, UAE, and Australia, which had shaken up the global bunker and shipping industry.
• Our Singapore and Cambodian lawyers worked together in the liquidation of Cambodian company Yung Wah, a key manufacturer of global apparel brands. This insolvency filing is the second formal insolvency court proceedings instituted in Cambodia, and the first ever instituted in the Kandal Provincial Court of Cambodia.
• We acted for Omni Ships Asia Pte Ltd, owned by Italian company Siba Ships S.p.A, in its scheme of arrangement in Singapore.

Restructuring and Workouts- domestic and cross border 

• Advising PT Bumi Resources Tbk, which owns one of the largest coal exporter in the world, and acting for its Singapore subsidiaries, Bumi Investment Pte Ltd and Bumi Capital Pte Ltd, in their high-profile debt restructuring with total debt amount of around USD4 billion and specifically in Singapore, for the restructuring of bonds and notes of around USD1 billion.
• Advising PT Perusahaan Pengelola Aset (the Indonesian Government’s asset management agency) in concluding the restructuring process for PT Tuban Petrochemical’s Multi Year Bonds and other liabilities amounting to a total of USD 355.9 million owed to Government of Indonesia (this marked the final act in a restructuring process that had been underway since the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98).
• Advised PT Multi Nitrotama Kimia in its successful challenge to a voluntary bankruptcy petition brought by Indomuro Kencana, an Indonesian gold mining company that is 100% owned by Australian publicly listed company Straits Resources Limited.
• Represented PT Barito Pacific Timber Tbk in its debt restructuring process, and the issuance of around USD 216 million of exchangeable bonds.
• Acting for a Chinese investment group in relation to the purchase of the assets of Mfone Co., Ltd., an insolvent telecommunication mobile operator in Cambodia with debt around USD160million. Mfone is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenington Investment Pte. Limited, a company incorporated in Singapore, which is in turn 51% owned by Thaicom Public Company Limited (Thaicom), the largest telecommunication conglomerate incorporated in Thailand.
• Advising creditors in the restructuring of Thai Canadoil Group, a global provider of integrated piping solutions, which has presence across 4 continents.
• Advising on bankruptcy cases in Vietnam including PPT (subsidiary of PetroVietnam) and Duy Tan Plastic, and being actively involved in the drafting of the Vietnamese Bankruptcy legislation.

Bankruptcy/Creditors' Rights and Enforcement

• We are on the panel of virtually every financial institution in Singapore and handle the bulk of their bankruptcy and enforcement work. We have also successfully acted for the Official Assignee in setting aside antecedent transactions.

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