Friday 18 November 2011

Oil & Product Tankers Show Signs of Strain

Lately there has been news about bamkrupties because it has been at least 4 years since the crisis as worse as the great depression has collapsed the economy. since then there has been no sign of recovery for tanker market. Oil tanker market has been the worst hit as we have seen the big boys succumb to market pressures and stain in the industry.


Oil tanker company General Maritime Corp filed for bankruptcy protection and Denmark's Torm said it was in talks with creditors on Thursday as both fell victim to a glut of ships in the world fleet and gathering global economic gloom. Torm's biggest problem is a huge debt, piled up from paying out quite high dividends in the years when things went well -- 2004 to 2007," Sydbank equity analyst Jacob Pedersen said. In June, the company said it had agreed an amendment of its $900 million revolving credit facility with Danske Bank , BNP Paribas, HSH Nordbank AG and SEB. That deal postponed most of a repayment of $630 million due in 2013 to 2015 on condition that it raise $100 million in new capital from shareholders by mid-December. If the debt extension is not carried out as agreed in June, payments of $510 million due in 2015 and $60 million due in 2014 would fall due in 2013 instead.


Bankers expect more bankruptcies and restructuring in the sector as companies struggle with a worsening world economic crisis and lower earnings driven by a build-up of ships ordered when times were good. In a related sign of sector stress, a second major Chinese shipping firm has halted payments to foreign ship owners because of the downturn in the freight market. General Maritime, a leading crude oil tanker company, elected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a New York court as part of a restructuring agreement that includes a $175 million equity investment from Oaktree Capital management and extensions on debt repayments.


Despite such a gloom, we have seen the results of chemical tanker players (a niche market in the tanker industry) continue to be resilient as the market expect a recovery next year and there has been sign of recovery. Take for example the results of Stolt Nielsen, Odfjell and to some extent Berlian Laju Tanker have seen the strength of chemical business by showing relatively strong results. market has predicted the recovery in chemical tanker business within 3-12 months down the road given the level of supply being subdued given the limited orders in 2009 and the cancellations coupled with scrapping of chemical tankers.

Hope this gives a sign of hope for chemical business.

SS

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Change on Law Regarding Material Transaction

1 Nov 2011
am back again folks! Just to report that I have just noticed from the Capital market supervisory agency portal and learned that there is a new draft law being processed right now. The draft regulation will superseed the existing rule IX.E.2 on material transaction. Took a quick look at the new draft rule and it seems an improvement from the existing one - although i think the wording of the draft rule must need to be refined as some of the sections especially on the para 4 (e) and (f) regarding the details of the disclosure was not very clear.
Some of the improvement that can be reported here is taht existing rule on material transaction requires listed companies intending to issue securities to conduct EGM with detailed disclosures including the name of the underwriters, selling price, size, the object and parties involved in the deal. The problem with this is that in many cases, at the point of the EGM many corporates may not know exactly some of this information including the name of the underwriters and the terms of the transaction yet. This renders some difficulties to the corporate that intend to issue such securities.
This draft regulation if published as it is will allow the corporates to conduct the EGM without first knowing all the specifics or details of the transaction including the name of the standby buyer(s) or the size of the deal. New information can be added or revised after the EGM is conducted.
The draft regulation also allows for non-disclosure of certain information if the issuance of the securities is related to debt securities offered to the QIBs via public offering in the international market. The non-disclosure items include the parties involved in the securities, the size of the deal, coupon rate and the requirement to have third party appraiser of the transaction.
Another thing that is made clear on this new piece of rule is that direct lending to corporates from local or foreign banks or financial institutions will be exempted from being considered as material transaction. Exemption from the rule is also given to those companies conducting material transaction under a restructuring process so long as those company suffers from negative working capital or negative equity. Banks which are currently being assisted or under a lending program by central bank or other government owned financial institutions which lending amount exceeds 100% of the equity of the corresponding bank or in any event that such a bank is currently under certain restructuring process will also be exempted from this rule.
there are some other changes include the definition of sale of shares that can be classified as material transaction. The type of sale of shares that falls under this category is the sale of shares due to a divestment process and not other type of sale of shares. The definition of main busiiness activity of a company has also been subject to many interpretation and corporates tries to link whatever businesses they have as their main business activity and thus avoid the rule. In this new regulation, the authority tries to define it further by stating that the MAIN businesses are only those businesses that are DIRECTLY operated by the company. Am not sure whether it makes things clearer on this one. Anyway, at least we have some clarity on other matters.
So, thats all for now. hope the above makes sense. Anyway, lets discuss if there is any concern.
Always
SS