China Fishery Group Ltd. sought U.S. bankruptcy protection four months after defaulting on $300 million of bonds amid investigations by market regulators in Singapore and Hong Kong, Bloomberg News reported today. The Hong Kong-based company yesterday filed its chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, listing as much as $50 million of liabilities and more than $500 million of assets, according to court documents. Its Singapore-listed parent company Pacific Andes Resources Development Ltd. filed a separate chapter 15 petition for companies reorganizing outside the U.S. The filings allow the group to fend off creditors and bondholders from seizing its assets, primarily the fishery business in Peru it acquired from Oslo-based Copeinca ASA in 2013. China Fishery said that efforts this year to sell the Peru fishery assets were not successful amid enforcement threats from some creditors. It received two undisclosed proposals in December that valued the business at $1.7 billion. The companies in the group “have been facing severe financial stress and encountered extreme challenges in their efforts to resuscitate and revive the business” after going in and out of provisional liquidation, it said in the court petition.
