KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 10): The High Court (commercial division) on Friday (Feb 10) granted an ad-interim stay (temporary stay) to Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd (SDHB) and its three subsidiaries of the winding-up order against them.
Serba Dinamik and its subsidiaries are said to have owed syndicated, bilateral creditors from financial institutions and sukuk holders RM5 billion.
The temporary stay order was granted by judge Ahmad Murad Abdul Aziz, pending the hearing of the companies’ permanent stay application fixed for hearing on March 6.
“The court does not think that the creditors would be prejudiced much with this ad-interim stay order, which would last approximately three weeks.
“Hence, the order for ad-interim stay is granted with the condition that the liquidator appointed be retained (until then) as an interim liquidator,” he added.
Ahmad Murad said he would hear the permanent stay application of the four companies on March 6, followed by a decision on March 9. He said he wants to keep it short, as it may affect the creditors.
Besides SDHB, the other companies that applied for the ad-interim stay were Serba Dinamik International Ltd, Serba Dinamik Sdn Bhd and Serba Dinamik Group Bhd.
They sought the ad-interim stay before the hearing of the permanent stay of the winding-up order pending the four companies’ appeal to the Court of Appeal, which they had filed.
In their affidavit supporting the motion for a stay sighted by The Edge, Serba Dinamik and the subsidiaries said the winding-up order should be deferred, pending the disposal of the appeal to the Court of Appeal and the appeal against their application to seek an adjournment of the winding-up hearing.
They said if a stay of the winding-up order is not granted, the four companies will suffer irreparable damage, which would see their contracts being terminated upon winding up, which, they claimed, is irrecoverable.
“The applicants’ appeal would be rendered academic, given that there is no business left for the applicants,” the affidavit read.
On Jan 10, Ahmad Murad allowed the applications by six financial institutions and some of Serba Dinamik’s creditors to wind up the four companies.
The applications by Standard Chartered Saadiq Bhd, HSBC Amanah Malaysia Bhd, AmBank Islamic Bhd, MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd, United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd and Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd were over the non-payment of loans amounting to RM1.7 billion out of a total of some RM5 billion owed.
They said the RM5 billion included the US$500 million (RM2.13 billion) sukuk on which it had defaulted.
Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and Mak Lin Kum, and Wong Ming Yen represented Serba Dinamik.
Malik had indicated to the court that his clients might want to appoint a co-liquidator.
Presently, PricewaterhouseCoopers, represented by Lee Shih and Pang Huey Lin, are the liquidators in the Serba Dinamik matter.
Creditors oppose the stay
Datin Jeyanthini Kannaperan appeared and represented the syndicated lenders, Benjamin Dawson, who appeared for the bilateral lenders in HSBC Amanah and HSBC Bank, and Claudia Cheah and Karen Tan appeared for Hong Leong Islamic Bank.
The creditors who had opposed the stay application cited the alleged loss of creditworthiness, goodwill and standing of the companies owing to their acts and omission.
These include the companies inability to pay what they described as a colossal debt to their creditors, coming up with a viable scheme of arrangement and defaulting in the scheme of arrangement to pay 15% of the debt to local creditors.
“There had been needless and obstructive action against Ernst & Young and Bursa and the RM12.4 billion unverified assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses,” it added in submissions sighted by The Edge.
They further claimed that the alleged adverse impact of the winding up is self-inflicted and not due to the winding up order.