Brightoil Petroleum (Brightoil) Holdings Limited on Friday (16 October) published an announcement on the cancellation of its listing, as required by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

Along with a summary of events that transpired since trading in Brightoil’s shares were suspended on 3 October 2017, the company also published steps it has taken to satisfy the resumption conditions set by the Listing Review Committee, its response to the listing committee’s decision, as well as the status of its shares.

Brightoil said it submitted to the Listing Review Committee that it used its best endeavor and had substantially implemented steps to satisfy the resumption conditions and restructure its outstanding liabilities and business operation. 

However, its efforts were jeopardised by the Covid-19 outbreak, which halted the completion of audit, prolonged negotiations with creditors and buyers of its assets.

Brightoil added it further submitted to the Listing Review Committee the following steps to satisfy the resumption conditions: 

• HLB Hodgson Impey Cheng Limited was appointed as the new auditor of Brightoil with effect from 23 January 2020 to fill the casual vacancy following the resignation of PwC in order to continue the audit work for the outstanding financial results;
• Brightoil had engaged RSM Corporate Advisory (Hong Kong) Limited (RSM) to conduct forensic review on the various back-to-back trading or indent sales transactions conducted by Brightoil Petroleum (Spore) Pte. Ltd. (BOPS) during the financial year ended 30 June 2017.
  • The forensic investigation report was issued and the announcement for key findings of the forensic review was published on 31 January 2020.
  • RSM was further engaged to prepare a supplemental forensic investigation report for the financial year ended 30 June 2018
  • The report was issued and the announcement on findings of the Supplemental Report was published on 17 September 2020;
• Brightoil had published the audited annual results announcement and annual report for the year ended 30 June 2017 on 14 August 2020 and 11 September 2020 respectively.
  • Subsequently, the unaudited interim results announcement for the six months ended 31 December 2017 was published on 17 September 2020;
• Brightoil’s continuous negotiations with its creditors had resulted in settlement agreements and loan restructuring agreements having been entered into between the company and several creditors.
  • Upon completion of the debt restructuring, the total debt amount would be substantially   reduced with various loans extended from 1 to 12 years;
• All Brightoil vessels have been sold to raise funds to repay outstanding debt owned by the company, and the company was in the process of disposing majority of its interests in the oil storage and terminal facilities in Zhoushan to raise further funds to repay partial outstanding debts.

“The Board accepts that the resumption conditions have not been fully fulfilled and there are uncertainties as to whether all the conditions could be fulfilled by the end of 2020,” said Brightoil in the announcement.

“Nevertheless, the Board will continue their efforts to work diligently to maximise the value of the company by continuing to complete its current debt restructuring initiatives and operate its current business operations and complete the disposal of Zhoushan oil storage project.”

“All Brightoil shareholders and investors should note that after 19 October 2020, the last day of listing of the shares on the Stock Exchange, whilst the share certificates of the shares shall remain valid, the shares will not be listed on, and will not be tradeable on, the Stock Exchange.”

Earlier developments of Brightoil (since late 2017 to date) can be found in the search results here. 

Photo credit: Brightoil Petroleum
Published: 19 October, 2020