Unsecured creditors of Peregrine Derivatives are to receive about $250 million in a second payment from a company connected to bankrupt Peregrine Investments Holdings, according to liquidator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Peregrine Derivatives creditors will receive an interim dividend of 15 cents in the dollar, a level higher than expected, said Stephen Caswell, PWC's partner in charge of the PDL liquidation. In a letter to creditors in March, PWC had forecast a dividend of at least 10 cents. 'The last estimate was given some time ago and was based on conservative estimates,' Mr Caswell said. 'However, the realisation of assets was better than we expected and some of the liabilities have gone away.' Mr Caswell estimated a total payout of between 20 and 35 cents in the dollar, with a second interim dividend scheduled for the middle of next year. PWC has recovered PDL Peregrine Derivatives assets - excluding interest - of $530 million, with the estimated value of creditors claims running at $1.7 billion. Mr Caswell said the biggest cheque among the unsecured batch will go to parent company Peregrine Investments Holdings which would help with its own dividend payout. The parent company, which collapsed in January last year with liabilities of US$4.5 billion, is expected to make an interim payout of as little as three cents. Mr Caswell said unsecured creditors whose claims arose under the International Swap Dealers' Association master agreement, will not be paid until the courts in Britain clarified complex legal issues in respect of the proper valuation of derivatives claims under the agreement. In August, creditors received the first payment from what the liquidators have called one of Hong Kong's biggest corporate failures. Peregrine Fixed Income paid a total of $1 billion, in the first pay-out since the parent company's collapse in January last year. The liquidator had received 76 claims of which 11 were rejected and of the remaining claims, six were employees.
