If Hyflux has found a white knight, why are stakeholders still in distress?

CORPORATE restructurings can be dirty and ugly. It usually ends with creditors fighting like cats for what amounts to no more than scraps compared to what they have invested.

Information is shared asymmetrically down the ladder of lenders. Banks get a first look at any rescue plan. Equity and quasi debt holders - which describe most of Hyflux's retail investors - line up at the end of the queue and often are the last to know if they will be paid.

Questions of management accountability, trust and fairness were given short shrift as Hyflux found respite under bankruptcy protection in May last year.