KUALA LUMPUR: Perisai Petroleum Teknologi Bhd, which became the first Malaysian oil and gas (O&G) company to fall victim to the slump in oil prices, has declared itself insolvent, after it could not pay the principal and interest of the S$125 million (RM379 million) bond issued by its wholly-owned subsidiary Perisai Capital (L) Inc.
“The company will not be able to meet the payment of the principal and interest of the notes when the same, which is guaranteed by the company, is demanded. As such, the company is insolvent,” the offshore services provider said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
Following this, Perisai has triggered the Practice Note 17 (PN17) criteria of Bursa Malaysia, which requires it to submit a regularisation plan to the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) if the plan will result in a significant change in the business direction or policy of the company.
But if the plan will not result in a significant change in the business direction or policy of the company, then Perisai will need to submit a regularisation plan to Bursa Securities and obtain the regulator’s approval to implement the plan.
Perisai will then need to implement the regularisation plan within the time frame stipulated by the SC or Bursa Securities.
In the event the company fails to comply with the obligations to regularise its condition, the company’s listed securities will be suspended from trading on the sixth market day after the date of notification of suspension by Bursa Securities, and delisting procedures will be taken against the company.
“The company is looking into formulating a regularisation plan to address its PN17 status and will make the necessary announcements on the regularisation plan in due course,” said Perisai.
To recap, the S$125 million bond with a coupon rate of 6.875% was issued under Perisai Capital’s S$700 million multi-currency medium term notes programme, which is unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by Perisai.
On Oct 3, bondholders, in a meeting in Singapore, rejected the proposed non-payment of principal and interest on the maturity date and a proposed postponement of the maturity date of the notes to Feb 3, 2017 — which meant that the notes were due on the same day.
Later that day, Perisai informed Bursa Malaysia — that together with its joint-venture partner Emas Offshore Ltd — it received an indicative financing offer from a financial institution on Sept 30.
“Part of the amount from the indicative offer would be earmarked towards a mutually acceptable resolution with the company’s noteholders with regard to the notes through the availability to Perisai Group of a sum of approximately US$20 million (about RM83.9 million),” it said.
Perisai said the default was due to the group operating under adverse financial conditions, with the downturn in the O&G sector.
Perisai shares closed down 0.5 sen or 6.25% at 7.5 sen yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM94.56 million.