Hyflux should be given chance to survive amid restructuring

THE annals of Singapore's corporate history are filled with the names of companies that went bankrupt and had to be liquidated, much to the dismay of their shareholders and creditors. From Pan-Electric in the mid-1980s to the S-chips of the mid-2010s, many of these companies were badly tainted by scandals involving accounting irregularities, missing cash and other major governance lapses, in which case it might be argued that their exit - although painful for shareholders - has left the market better off as a whole.

The same, however, cannot be said of water treatment firm Hyflux Ltd, a homegrown success story and a pioneer in the field of water treatment. There is no accounting scandal shrouding the company, and no hint of impropriety behind its woes.

Instead, the reasons for its financial difficulties are by now well-known, stemming primarily from an ambitious and ill-timed expansion into power provision via its Tuaspring plant, a debt-laden move which now threatens its existence.