Greater ChinaShipyards

Rongsheng’s debt restructuring gets underway

Shanghai: China Development Bank is to lead the debt restructuring of the Chinese private shipyard, Rongsheng Heavy Industries.

The creditor banks of Rongsheng are planning to list all the shipbuilding assets of Rongsheng on Shanghai’s A-share market and enforce debt-to-equity swap to fix its bank-related debts.

Rongsheng Heavy Industries, rebranded as China Huarong Energy Company, recently announced that it has signed a deal with third parties to sell its shipbuilding division and it will now focus on the energy projects.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding is believed to have been tapped by Beijing as one of the main parties to take over Rongsheng’s shipyard, something that was hinted at by state media yesterday.

However, Rongsheng officials refused to give more details on the sale when contacted by Splash today.

Rongsheng’s spectacular fall from grace has been illustrative of China’s extreme shipyard overcapacity. It once was China’s largest private yard, and could claim the highest orderbooks in the world for suezmax tankers and panamax bulkers, before it crashed in spectacular fashion with total debts estimated to be more than $3bn.

Katherine Si

Having majored in English Katherine started out at news portal ShippingChina.com where she rose to become News Editor. In 2008 she moved to work with Sam Chambers and has since held numerous positions including China correspondent for Seatrade magazine. Katherine is in touch with Chinese owners and yards on a daily basis and has had many prestigious news scoops reporting China’s fast evolving maritime scene.
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