For Oceanus minorities, relief comes too late

OCEANUS Group, touted as the world's largest land-based abalone producer, may have escaped yet another financial crisis with its latest debt-restructuring exercise.

Three days before Christmas, shareholders of the abalone and premium seafood supplier, which has been on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) watch list since December 2015, approved its debt-restructuring exercise at an extraordinary general meeting.

In this latest exercise, some 19.7 billion new shares will be issued at S$0.00395 a share. It will clear S$71.8 million, or 85 per cent, of the group's total outstanding debt, while providing S$6 million in much-needed fresh capital, including S$900,000 from Oceanus' executive director and chief executive officer Peter Koh. After the exercise, his stake in Oceanus will rise to 10.23 per cent from 0.24 per cent.