The High Court of Singapore granted Singapore’s OCBC Bank’s application for Xihe Holdings to be placed under interim judicial management.
Seshadri Rajagopalan and Paresh Jotangia of accounting and consulting firm Grant Thornton Singapore have been appointed as the interim judicial managers of the large Singaporean tanker owner.
They will supervise Xihe Holdings and its four special purpose vehicles (SPVs) –Da Xin Tankers, Hua Guang Shipping, Nan King Maritime and Hua Xin Shipping. These units together own five vessels .
The tankers that will come under Grant Thornton’s supervision are the 318,000-dwt Qi Lian San (built 2012), the 318,000-dwt Tai Hung San (built 2010), the 318,000-dwt Lu San (built 2009), the 74,000-dwt long-range 1 (LR1) Tai Hu (built 2007) and the 50,400-dwt medium-range (MR) tanker Ocean Mercury.
Grant Thornton confirmed its interim judicial management appointment.
Xihe declined to comment when contacted.
OCBC applied for Xihe and the four SPV's to be placed under court supervision last month, citing a strong distrust of Xihe’s management after allegedly fraudulent activities were uncovered at affiliated Hin Leong Trading.
The appointment of Grant Thornton does not apply to the remaining SPVs under Xihe Holdings Capital, nor related Xihe Capital and its SPVs.
Collectively Xihe Capital, Xihe Holdings and their 75 SPV subsidiaries belong to the Xihe Group, which in total owns a total fleet of 136 vessels that cover the full tanker size spectrum.
The group also owns some tankers that are under construction in China, some of which are in the process of being cancelled.
Last month the Xihe Group parted ways with founder Lim Oon Kuin, who is also owner of collapsed oil trader Hin Leong Trading and tanker operator Ocean Tankers.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services and Ernst & Young (EY) have been appointed as judicial managers for Hin Leong Trading Ocean Tankers and respectively. The have been given an initial supervisory period of 180 days.
Lim and his children are said to no longer be part of the Xihe Group management team.
In place of the Lim family, Xihe formed a new independent management board which it said had “more than 100 years' collective sea and shore-side shipping company management experience between them”.
Xihe is planning to put 31 vessels, comprising of LR and MR product tankers into the Maersk Tankers’ pool.
The company recently appointed V.Group as technical and commercial manager for 16 of its tankers.
