Status: 01/24/2022 10:19 a.m
Billionaire Lim Kok Thay has resigned as head of bankrupt cruise company Genting Hong Kong. Its German subsidiary MV Werften is also struggling to survive.
Malaysian billionaire Lim Kok Thay has resigned as chairman and managing director of insolvent cruise company and MV shipyard owner Genting Hong Kong. The company announced this on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In addition to the boss, the Vice President and President of the Genting Group, Colin Au, also resigned. The company is looking for suitable candidates to fill the positions. Trading in the company’s shares remained suspended today.
insolvency administrator appointed
At the same time, insolvency administrators were appointed to work out a restructuring of the ailing company. A Bermuda court on Friday appointed bankruptcy trustees Edward Simon Middleton, Wing Sze Tiffany Wong and Edward Alexander Niles Whittaker. They should work out an agreement with the lenders that would make it possible for the Genting group to survive.
Two years after the outbreak of the pandemic that hit the cruise industry hard, the winding up of Genting Hong Kong is a setback for the MV shipyards. The German shipyard locations that Genting Hong Kong took over in 2016 had to file for bankruptcy at the beginning of January.
“Setback for the MV Werften”
The preliminary insolvency administrator of the MV shipyards, Christoph Morgen, said last week: “Genting’s entry into the bankruptcy protection procedure is initially a setback for the MV shipyards as well, since Dream Cruises, which belongs to Genting, is the customer for Global One. ” The “Global One” is to be the world’s largest cruise ship with space for almost 10,000 passengers and is currently being built in the MV shipyards. It is already 75 percent complete.
The 70-year-old Lim Kok Thay, the richest Malaysian, founded the Genting Hong Kong company in 1993 under the name Star Cruises. Today, the Asian tourism group also operates ships under the Dream Cruises and Crystal Cruises brands, as well as the Resorts World Manila. The main markets were Hong Kong and China. The billionaire owns 76 percent of the cruise business.