KUALA LUMPUR (March 16): The High Court here has refused to grant a permanent stay of a winding up petition against Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd (SDHB) and its three subsidiaries, pending its appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Judge Ahmad Murad Abdul Aziz in his decision on Thursday (March 16) said having read the affidavits and considered the submissions made, the companies failed to prove there are special circumstances for the court to grant the stay of the winding-up order issued on Jan 10, pending their appeal.

He said it was better that the provisional liquidator be answerable to the court rather than leaving it in the hands of directors of the companies.

The judge added that the court disagreed with the submission of the companies that the refusal in granting the stay would result in the appeal to be considered nugatory. “Hence, the application for stay is dismissed."

Ahmad Murad said that his full grounds would be ready within two weeks should the parties want to challenge the decision.

The court also ordered the companies' executive directors to pay total costs of RM11,000 to the syndicated financiers, the bilateral financiers and Hong Leong Islamic Bank.

Earlier on Feb 10, Ahmad Murad had granted an interim stay of the winding up of the four companies.

On Jan 10, the court granted the winding-up application made by the financiers against SDHB and the three companies. Apart from SDHB, the other companies involved are Serba Dinamik International Ltd, Serba Dinamik Sdn Bhd and Serba Dinamik Group Bhd.

The applications for winding up were made 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 over the non-payment of loans amounting to RM1.7 billion out of a total of RM5 billion owed.

They said the RM5 billion included the US$500 million (RM2.13 billion) sukuk, for which it had defaulted.

Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and Mak Lin Kum appeared for SDHB and the other companies, while Datin Jeyanthini Kannaperan appeared for the syndicated lenders, Benjamin John Dawson for the bilateral lenders, and Claudia Cheah for Hong Leong Islamic Bank, while Lee Shih and Pang Huey Lynn appeared for the liquidators on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Murad fixed May 26 for two other entities, who are creditors, to also intervene in the matter.