ING, Maybank top creditors of distressed Singapore firm Agritrade

Maybank building

SINGAPORE: ING and Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) were the top creditors of Singapore commodity trader Agritrade International, which was last month placed under interim judicial management.

Documents reviewed by Reuters showed Malaysia’s Maybank tops the list of secured lenders to Agritrade with US$118mil owed to it, with Dutch bank ING owed US$100mil.

The trading company has US$1.55bil in outstanding liabilities to dozens of creditors, including US$983mil owed to secured lenders, an affidavit by Agritrade’s chief executive officer Ng Xinwei dated Jan 16, showed.

A Maybank spokesman declined to comment on specific clients but said that it “has a stringent provisioning policy in place and takes appropriate measures as and when required to manage the asset quality of our entire credit portfolio”. ING declined to comment.

In February, ING said provisions for bad loans rose in its fourth quarter, due in part to what it said was a single provision for a fraud case at a customer in Asia.

ING did not disclose the identity of the customer.French, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, the United Arab Emirates and Korean banks, along with 10 private funds are among Agritrade’s other creditors, according to the list, which also included some global commodity traders.

Agritrade said in the affidavit it ran into financial problems around 2018 amid a declining commodities market and its funding issues were compounded after many banks halted funding.

“This situation was exacerbated by the sudden withdrawal of numerous credit lines by several of the company’s bank lenders, ” Ng said, adding that the situation affected Agritrade’s liquidity and its ability to fulfil its future commitments.

Agritrade International is the parent company of Hong Kong-listed Agritrade Resources Ltd. The firm was placed under interim judicial management in February after the court dismissed an application for a debt moratorium.

Consulting firm EY told Reuters that the Singapore court had appointed its partners Angela Ee and Aaron Loh as interim judicial managers of Agritrade International. Agritrade International said its primary assets are in the form of trade receivables and its shares in Agritrade Resources, according to the documents. Agritrade International and Agritrade Resources did not respond to a request for comment. — Reuters