BrazilAlvarez & Marsal’s restructuring team helps keep Genting afloat
Hong Kong listed cruise and resort company Genting is restructured, recapitalised and ready to go – following a year-long restructuring process managed by a team at Alvarez & Marsal in Hong Kong.
A leading global operator of leisure and entertainment cruises – owned by Malaysian billionaire Lim Kok Thay – Genting Hong Kong was among myriad travel and tourism companies to be devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on movement.
By August 2020, the company stopped paying off its $3 billion plus debt – causing a near 40% drop in share price on the HKEX – and Hong-Kong-based experts from Alvarez & Marsal were called in to help restructure the debt burden. Nearly a year later, and a press has confirmed the successful onboarding of an “ad hoc group of lenders.”
“The restructuring involved amendments to approximately $2.6 billion of existing bank facility agreements and the provision of approximately $0.7 billion of new money facilities to the Group,” reads the statement, noting the transaction as “one of the largest bank restructurings completed in Asia this year.”
Alvarez & Marsal’s team of experts that worked on the engagement included Hong Kong managing director and Asia restructuring lead Ron Thompson, alongside fellow managing director Edward Middleton; senior directors James Hooper and Carmen Yeung; and senior manager Mingxiao Chen.
Plans are now to operationalise Genting’s fleet in line with a broader vaccine-induced recovery of a once-booming Asia Pacific travel landscape – albeit with a degree of caution. “The group is working actively to deploy passenger cruising opportunities across all potential routes, acknowledging that it may face unforeseen disruptions and incur additional start-up costs in this uncertain process,” said Lim.
“Meanwhile, the board shall continue to closely monitor the group’s liquidity position and explore strategic options available to the group to further improve the group’s liquidity and competitive positions,” he added.
The caution stems from experience: the firm’s ‘Explorer Dream’ cruise – that was operational at the start of this year – had to suddenly halt activities in May, when the Hong Kong government reverted back to high restrictions due to a new wave in Taiwan. With new variants abound, similar developments in the near future have equal potential to disrupt the rebuilding process – although Genting now has the financial backing to navigate challenges ahead.
