In a recent case on Corporate Restructuring, Ekran a PN 17 company seemed to get the wrong side of the law when it has submitted its regularization plan to the Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd and was told that it  “fail” to submit the regularization plan to Securities Commission (SC) which might result in  Bursa Malaysia de-listing it.
Salient points:

• The company is Ekran Bhd, previously a high-flier in the mid-90s which was awarded the contract for the mega Bakun hydroelectric dam project in Sarawak,

• Controlled by Sarawakian tycoon Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing

• Its share price, which hit RM12.84 in September 1994, was last traded at 18 sen on Jan 17.

• Is a Practice Note PN 17 which supposed to submit its regularization plan to the SC and other relevant authorities for approval (Ekran went into difficulties after the government deferred the multi-billion ringgit dam project during the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. The scaled-down project is now being undertaken by Sime Darby Bhd.)

• Ekran has earlier submitted to Bursa Securities on Dec 29, involved a repayment scheme for all the group’s borrowings, review of the group’s business operations and recovery of the group’s outstanding debts.

• However on Jan 18, Bursa Securities rejected the proposed extension as it deemed Ekran have failed to submit its latest rationalisation or recovery plan to the SC for approval.

• Ekran in turn announced that the said  Dec 29 revamp plan did not require the SC’s approval to implement since it did not involve any capital restructuring or issue of new securities.
  

• The beleaguered company has submitted its appeal to Bursa Securities to defer the suspension on the trading of its securities on Jan 24 and the commencement of de-listing procedures, pending clarification from the Securities Commission (SC),

• Following the latest development, Ekran said it had submitted the revamp plan to the SC and is seeking its clarification on whether an approval was required to implement the plan.

• It had also appealed to Bursa Securities to defer the suspension on trading of its securities on Jan 24 and commencement of the de-listing procedures, pending the clarification from the SC.

• Ekran posted net losses of RM5.68 million on the back of RM2.55 million in revenue for the first quarter ended Sept 30, 2006. It has short-term borrowings of RM131.6 million.

• Ting owns 20.06% or 105.51 million shares in Ekran. His outstanding debt to Ekran was RM466.4 million as at Sept 30, 2006 after repaying RM246.5 million via the injection of some assets by Ting and his associates.

(The Edge 18/1/07)

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