SINGAPORE’S High Court on Friday (Apr 5) issued a winding-up order to Singapore-listed offshore and marine player Falcon Energy Group, more than five years after the company suspended the trading of its shares on the back of a debt overhaul. 

Falcon Energy’s case was presided over by Justice Vinodh Coomaraswamy. AmBank, one of the company’s principal lenders, was represented by Hariz Lee of Joseph Tan Jude Benny, while Falcon Energy was represented by Anglo Law Chambers. 

AmBank filed a winding-up order against Falcon Energy on Aug 25, 2021. Since then, both parties have been fighting it out in court, with Falcon Energy calling for the court to give it more time to restructure, and AmBank putting pressure on it to either repay its debts to its creditors or wind up. 

The Business Times understands that Justice Coomaraswamy ordered Falcon Energy to wind up after the company had allowed the moratorium previously granted by the court to lapse.

This was despite the company being reminded by the court on Mar 13 to file an extension application in sufficient time for it to be heard ahead of the winding-up hearing. 

According to a Mar 27 affidavit seen by BT, one of Falcon Energy’s directors – Tan Sooh Whye – asked the court for the moratorium to be extended by two more months. 

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

Tan said the company faced difficulty in preparing the intended scheme of arrangement to be proposed to creditors, as well as the definitive agreements for the company’s proposed private placements, due to “cash-flow constraints”. 

She argued that the company, in particular its marine division, was not currently trading because a majority of the group’s fleet of offshore support vessels had been sold. The only cash flow into the company has been monthly injections of various amounts from its directors, she added. 

In written submissions filed by lawyers representing AmBank on Dec 13 last year, it was noted that Falcon Energy had tried to restructure itself three times. 

AmBank’s lawyers had opposed the company’s first application for an extension of the moratorium on the grounds that it was “not made in good faith”. They noted Falcon Energy’s director Tan Pong Tyea was the white-knight investor of the company, and no other details of the purported investment had surfaced.

AmBank’s lawyers also flagged the lack of particulars pertaining to the identity of Falcon Energy’s white-knight investors, as well as an “increasing disclosure” of unsecured creditors and the lack of future revenue. 

In a bourse announcement on Apr 8, Falcon Energy confirmed that a winding-up order had been made against it, and that Lim Loo Khoon and Tan Wei Cheong have been appointed as its liquidators.

Falcon Energy said it will make further announcements as and when there are material developments.