SGX Approves Rickmers Maritime's Delisting Plan

In an investor advisory issued Thursday, Singapore-based shipowner Rickmers Maritime announced that the Singapore Exchange (SGX) has approved its proposal to delist. 

Rickmers’ exit from SGX will have a negative effect on unitholders: the trust said that it is "unable to make a reasonable exit offer . . .  whether by way of a voluntary liquidation of the Trust’s assets and distribution of cash back to unitholders or otherwise." No net cash proceeds will remain for distribution after Rickmers Maritime satisfies its debts to creditors and pays for the expenses related to its trusteeship, and Rickmers said that shareholders will not receive any "recovery or distribution" in connection with the winding-up of the trust's business. The controlling unitholder is bankrupt itself, Rickmers said, and does not have resources to make an exit offer to the firm's other unitholders. 

Rickmers recently sold 14 vessels to Navios Partners, in addition to five vessels sold previously. A joint venture of HSH Nordbank and DBS Bank was the lender for the nine ships, and the banks approved the sale for a total of $54 million (plus miscellaneous costs). The banks' JV will receive the entirety of the proceeds. Unsecured creditors will receive a total of $27 million, equivalent to roughly 11 percent of the amounts owed, and will receive notice of the exact distributions in the third quarter of the year. 

HSH Nordbank’s board rejected a restructuring proposal from Rickmers Maritime in late May, discarding an agreement that had been negotiated the month before. The rejection forced Rickmers to file for bankrupty and begin the process of liquidating its assets.