Hyflux Seeks Court Protection For Debt

[globalcookie]

Fallen Singapore High-Flyer Seeks Court Protection for Debt
Bloomberg 3 hours ago


Singapore’s Marina Bay in January 2018. (File photo: AP/Wong Maye-E)
By Joyce Koh and Andrea Tan

Hyflux Ltd., the Singapore water treatment firm, has suspended trading of its shares and related securities and started a court-supervised reorganization process, the company said in a statement late Tuesday.

The move will provide the company with room to focus on ongoing discussions with strategic investors, while seeking to optimize operations and maintain cash flows, Hyflux said in the statement. Ernst & Young Solutions LLP has been appointed as a financial adviser and WongPartnership LLP as a legal adviser.

Hyflux last year posted its first annual loss since listing, and the company has said its energy business could suffer as an oversupply of gas depresses electricity prices. The turnabout in fortunes for Hyflux, whose founder Olivia Lum was a poster child for local entrepreneurs, adds to signs of pressures that smaller borrowers in the Singapore debt market face.

“A debt workout of some sort was inevitable,” Ezien Hoo, a Singapore-based credit analyst at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., said on Tuesday before the Hyflux announcement. “They were facing short-term debt, as well as the need to maintain cash to meet their bond covenants.”

Hyflux has been in talks to sell a stake in its single-largest asset, the Tuaspring project, which combines Southeast Asia’s largest desalination plant with a gas turbine power plant. It’s also been negotiating a potential divestment of the Tianjin Dagang desalination plant.

The fact that Hyflux was able to win contracts in recent months could mean that its business, excluding Tuaspring, is not so dire and that the firm may just need time to recapitalize its balance sheet, according to OCBC’s Hoo.

Debt Surges

Hyflux, which was worth nearly S$2.1 billion ($1.6 billion) at its peak in late 2010, now has a market value of S$165 million. It’s the second-worst performer on Singapore’s FTSE ST All Share Index this year, with a 39 percent decline, trailing only Noble Group Ltd.

The company said earlier this month it was in talks with potential investors to inject funds. Its net loss widened to S$22.2 million in the three months ended March 31, from a restated S$64,000 a year earlier.

Hyflux’s net debt surged to 165 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as of March 31, from about 32 times at the end of last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company faces a coupon payment due May 28 on its S$500 million of 6 percent perpetual securities. Its S$100 million of 4.25 percent bonds mature in September.

Hyflux’s former success had won accolades for its founder, an orphan who left a career in pharmaceuticals to start her own business with S$20,000 raised from selling her car and apartment.

Law Change

The company, which became Hyflux, won municipal contracts in Singapore and expanded into new markets like Malaysia, China and India. Lum was named to government bodies, including International Enterprise Singapore, and appointed as a member of parliament in a seat reserved for distinguished community members.

Singapore updated its corporate insolvency framework last year following nearly $1 billion of defaults in the Singapore bond market since November 2015, Law Minister K. Shanmugam said in an August speech. The changes, which incorporate elements of the U.S. Chapter 11 system, were passed by parliament in March 2017.

One of the amendments effectively protects companies seeking an arrangement with their lenders, allowing a court to block creditors from filing winding-up petitions or seizing pledged assets while negotiations take place.

[jason1202]

I guess that the main reason that leads them to today problem is the limited revenue they are receiving due to the controlled pricing of the water they are treating.

Such facilities required huge capital start up and it would takes years before they can clear their debts.

With limited upside of the water pricing, no one really knows how long it would takes for them to have sufficient revenue to repay the debts.

[satan_gal]

Originally Posted by globalcookie

Hyflux last year posted its first annual loss since listing, and the company has said its energy business could suffer as an oversupply of gas depresses electricity prices.

I only saw this.

So electricity prices shd be dropping also, no?

[globalcookie]

Gas price drop, someone will say oil price. Oil price drop, will say gas. Got magic one. U know la... they loved to do e samba or tango dance. I've lost complete trust in them la....

u cant trust liars can u? Oh before I become e next RN in case got some wu jian dao.... where they lie? CPF promises that I can withdraw when I turn 55.

[richardg]

Their core is water treatment.
Went to supply energy.
Did not financially ring fence subsidiaries?

[50cents]

Will it be any economics impact ?

[stargazer]

I hope they will recover from this.

[loveikan]

Water and electrical so kena shocked.
They need a white knight or someone to take over the energy biz