Deutsche Bank subsidiary files petition seeking liquidation of Hong Kong-listed developer Goldin Financial Holdings

DB Trustees (Hong Kong) has applied for liquidation to prevent Pan Sutong, Goldin’s chairman, from selling two companies that own its headquarters, source says

The developer and its creditors are all currently claiming the ownership of its headquarters in Kowloon Bay

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Goldin Financial Global Centre in Kowloon Bay. Photo: Handout

Published: 4:17pm, 12 Oct 2020Updated: 10:42pm, 12 Oct 2020

A unit of Deutsche Bank has filed a petition in Bermuda seeking the liquidation of Hong Kong-listed developer Goldin Financial Holdings, the company said in a filing to the city’s exchange on Monday.

Goldin said that at about 6pm Hong Kong time on October 7 it received an email from its agent in Bermuda enclosing a copy of the petition, which was dated August 7, and had been presented by DB Trustees (Hong Kong) to the Supreme Court of Bermuda for the “purported winding-up of the company”. It said it would resist the petition.

The developer and its creditors are all currently claiming the ownership of its headquarters, the 28-storey Goldin Financial Global Centre in Kowloon Bay. The petition in Bermuda is being viewed as another attempt by receivers and managers engaged by the creditors to keep Goldin from selling the property on its own.

Goldin unit Smart Edge, which effectively owns the building, borrowed HK$6.8 billion (US$877.37 million) from a group of undisclosed lenders in April 2019. While Deutsche Bank was the facility agent, its subsidiary DB Trustees was the trustee to the loan deal. Smart Edge fell behind on its loan obligations, breached the loan covenants because occupancy and debt servicing fell below agreed levels, according to previous filings with the Hong Kong exchange. Goldin’s other units, Cheng Mei and Goal Eagle, also received a demand from lenders in July this year for HK$1.5 billion and HK$1.9 billion, respectively, for two separate loans tied to the head quarters.

A source close to Goldin said the developer has been “selling land parcels in Kai Tak and intended to borrow an HK$8.8 billion facility from CK Asset Holdings to repay the loan”, and had also given its creditors “a repayment proposal”, the source said. But the creditors had rejected the proposal and were trying to take the tower by force. “We have been sincerely wanting to repay the loan. Do [they] not have to return the collateral if we can repay the loan?”

Pan Sutong, Goldin’s billionaire chairman, then decided to sell the two companies that own the building to another buyer.