Shanghai: Nantong People’s Court has announced that it has accepted Sainty Marine’s request to restructure Mingde Heavy Industry, a major shipyard in Nantong, as the latter has been unable to repay debts and its asset are not worth enough to repay creditors.
As the largest creditor of Mingde Heavy Industry, Sainty Marine plans to take over the shipyard through transferring debts to an equity share.
Currently shipbuilding operation of Mingde are normal but the yard has been suffering from financial difficulties since 2012, and has changed its strategy and focus to the construction of chemical tankers.
Due to the financial difficulties, Mingde has been unable to receive bank guarantees, and had to team up with Sainty Marine on new orders.
In April, Mingde signed with Sainty Marine and Celsius Shipping for seven chemical tankers. Under the contract, Mingde will build the vessels and Sainty Marine will acquire the vessels upon completion and sell them to Celsius Shipping.
In an interview earlier this year, Ji Fenghua, president of Mingde, said the shipyard had in hand orders for 30 chemical tankers which would keep the shipyard busy until 2017, and it was also in negotiations for another 40 chemical tankers. Ji expected that the shipyard would become the top shipbuilder for stainless chemical tankers in the world this year in terms of order volume and order value. [29/12/14]
