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SINGAPORE: About a third of the roughly 150 ships owned by companies controlled by Singaporean magnate Lim Oon Kuin and his family were sold as part of efforts to pay off billions of dollars of debt with creditors, two sources told Reuters .
Accounting firm Grant Thornton, the court-appointed supervisor of Xihe Holdings, put several boats up for sale through boat brokers in September last year. Xihe Holdings is owned by the Lim family and had most of their fleet.
The remainder of the ships are majority owned by Xihe Capital, currently in liquidation according to the records of the Singapore company register, and 10 single-purpose companies.
The ships owned by the Xihe group have been sold at prices of $ 2 million to $ 3 million each for coastal barges and about $ 30 million each for very large crude carriers (VLCCs), the two sources said.
Buyers include Greek boat owners, one of the sources said. No further details were available, including the total amount of money raised thus far.
The rest of the ships are expected to be sold by the end of this year, although some of them are involved in various lawsuits as counterparts try to reclaim the cargoes on the ships, the source said.
The sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media. A representative for the Lim family, their attorney and Grant Thornton did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the sale of the boats.
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Lim Oon Kuin, also known as OK Lim, with his son Evan Lim Chee Meng and daughter Lim Huey Ching, had owned just over 150 ships before his flagship trading company Hin Leong Trading, the fleet manager Ocean Tankers and Xihe Holdings were placed under receivership. last year.
Most of Lims’ fleet remains dormant in the South China Sea, off the eastern Malaysian peninsula, Refinitiv Eikon shipping data showed.
Other assets being sold include the family’s stake in Universal Terminal and a lubricants plant in Singapore.
Last month, receivers filed a request to liquidate Hin Leong, nearly a year after what was once one of Asia’s leading oil traders racked up some $ 4 billion in debt and entered a restructuring. judicial.
Hin Leong had been trying to restructure his debts after the oil price crash last year when OK Lim admitted in a court document that he ordered the company not to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for several years.
The accounting agency PwC said in a report last year that Hin Leong had no future as an independent company after it “grossly overstated” the value of its assets by at least $ 3 billion.
