PEs with deep pockets may be last resort for shipping sector

Singapore

THE troubled maritime, offshore and engineering sector, faced with mounting problems accessing bank financing and the public equity market, may have to fall back on private equity (PE) with deep pockets for new funding.

These are inferences drawn from a SEA Asia 2017 panel discussion of which DBS Group chief executive Piyush Gupta was a participant.

Mr Gupta, in noting vast overcapacity, said that bank financing to the sector has come under constraint.

He acknowledged that "excess supply" primarily in China will not be "coming off the roof" in the next three years. These will largely constrain bank financing a…