pluton

December 27, 2016

General Nice subsidiary forced into liquidation

A company part of General Nice Group (俊安集团), the Chinese coal and iron trader that owns Isua iron mine in Greenland, has been ordered into liquidation by Hong Kong’s High Court, after a petition by Australian creditors. The company, General Nice Resources (Hong Kong) Ltd (俊安资源(香港)有限公司), is not directly connected to the Greenland project, but there is an indirect link: Isua is owned (through a Jersey company) by another Hong Kong entity, General Nice Development (Hong Kong), which has a 40% stake in the company that has just fallen into liquidation. Thus, while the Greenland mine’s ownership and management remains unaffected, a subsidiary of its owner has just been ordered to wind up.

The liquidation petition was launched by KordaMentha, an Australian insolvency firm appointed by General Nice as receiver of Pluton Resources, the owner of an iron mine on Cockatoo Island, WA. KordaMentha are said to be owed several million AUD for expenses incurred during their time at Pluton, where General Nice have a controlling stake. Pluton has seen a good amount of drama in the last couple of years, with disputes between General Nice, a Chinese partner, a Chinese client and Australian contractors, including multiple, at one time simultaneous, receiverships, a police intervention, and litigation in Hong Kong and Australia, up to the Supreme Court. To the extent what I’ve read about Pluton can be summarised in any meaningful way, General Nice claim they’ve been pumping funds into Pluton to keep it alive despite low iron prices, while everybody else claims General Nice owe them money.

Last year, another creditor, Baosteel subsidiary Ningbo Steel (宁波钢铁), had asked for General Nice Resources HK to be wound up. General Nice acknowledged the debt, but sued back, arguing Ningbo Steel were trying to hurt their reputation. Ningbo eventually dropped the liquidation petition and apparently got paid, but GN’s case against Ningbo went on for some time. In a nutshell, GN say Ningbo’s petition was defamatory and frivolous as they were going to pay anyway, while Ningbo say the petition was justified since they got paid thanks to it.

But there’s more. General Nice Group, including the Greenland licence-holder, is ultimately largely owned by its chairman, Cai Suixin 蔡穗新, and his family. (I wrote an overview of the Group some time ago.) Another recent Hong Kong court order targeted Cai directly. In late October, a High Court judge forbade Cai from removing assets from Hong Kong (or to keep at least US$20m within HK). The order was requested by a Mainland bank.

And still more. Besides that Mainland-related injunction against Cai, two more banks are trying to claim debts, according to Oriental Daily News. A month ago, Société Générale filed bankruptcy petitions against Cai Suixin and his sister Cai Suirong 蔡穗榕, who’s also involved in various companies in the Group. And in yet another case, last week HSBC petitioned the High Court attempting to recover mortgaged property in the Le Cachet (嘉逸轩) development in Happy Valley (跑马地) from Cai Suirong.

General Nice’s Arctic foray is not easy to interpret. The takeover of the Isua mine, which has no development perspectives in the medium term, and the (thwarted) attempt to buy a derelict naval base in Greenland (something I’ll be writing about soon), don’t seem to make much sense as commercial investments for a company that could use some profits. Perhaps the value of these Arctic moves is favour with state entities (including SOEs) related to them, rather than directly generated profits.

[Update, Dec 30: General Nice Group chairman Cai Suixin 蔡穗新 and high executive Lau Yu 柳宇 are resigning from their posts at the Group’s Hong Kong-listed company, “for personal reasons and hoping to devote more time to other business.” Their replacements come from Huarong 华融 Asset Management, a large state-owned company specialised in distressed assets, that is said to be in the process of restructuring some other General Nice assets.

The Hong Kong-listed company is not related to the Isua mine in Greenland. The company gone into liquidation discussed in this post is a shareholder in it. I explained the (rather colourful) history of the listed arm here.

A story by Walter Turnowsky about the General Nice Resources liquidation, referencing this post, appeared today in the online edition of Greenland paper Sermitsiaq.]

August 11, 2015

General Nice buys into Canadian oil

General Nice (俊安集团), owners of the Isua iron ore project in Greenland, have acquired a 30% stake in a small Alberta oil company through their HK-listed arm, Loudong General Nice Resources (楼东俊安). The operaton cost Loudong General Nice, where General Nice and related parties are shareholders, some $65m in consideration shares.

The Calgary-based target of the acquisition, Rockeast Energy, has a few oil licences in Alberta. The company was, already before General Nice’s entry, at least partially Chinese-run and owned. Rongshi United Investment Management (嵘世联合) aka Runiworld have a stake in Rockeast, and some sort of ‘alliance‘ has existed between Rockeast and Zhefu 浙富 Holding Group. Zhefu, chaired by Sun Yi 孙毅, primarily make hydropower equipment, but they have an interest in Canadian oil since the purchase of a number of oil fields from Zargon. As of last year, Zhefu’s Canadian subsidiary, Ascensun Oil and Gas, shared an address with Rockeast. It’s unclear who did General Nice buy the stake from, since the transaction was made through a series of BVI companies.

Loudong General Nice Resources, the HK-listed company that has bought Rockeast, is partially owned by General Nice Group (I’ve written about other shareholders here). The Isua licence in Greenland is not owned through Loudong General Nice, but through a Jersey-based of another, non-listed, company of the group. I have a whole series of posts and a background article on General Nice.

A bit as in the case of the Greenland mine and other recent acquisitions, this latest move can be seen as part of General Nice’s effort to diversify away from its historical core business, Shanxi coal, by buying cheap overseas assets.

Meanwhile in Australia, Pluton Resources, partially owned by General Nice, has halted operations at the Cockatoo Island mine amid a dispute with the Western Australian government over unpaid royalties.

June 3, 2015

some good news for General Nice

A quick update on General Nice (俊安集团), the license holder for the Isua iron mine in Greenland.

Some two weeks ago, the group’s Hong Kong-listed company, Loudong General Nice Resources (樓東俊安), entered a conditional agreement to issue some $50m in convertible bonds to state-owned investment manager China Huarong 华融. That money would help pay for an investment in a Mainland logistics business Loudong GN have been talking about for some time.

Loudong General Nice have had a tough couple of years as their historical core business of Shanxi coal generated considerable losses, but they’ve been trying to diversify away from it and have already managed to get some new Mainland shareholders on board, as I’ve reported recently. Their shares are trading at almost three times what they were worth not two months ago.

General Nice’s HK-listed company is not directly involved in Isua.

Meanwhile in Australia, a troubled General Nice investment is starting to look better. Pluton Resources, the operator of the Cockatoo iron mine off Western Australia, where General Nice own a majority stake, has come out of receivership, where it had landed after a dispute with Chinese partners and creditors. Encouraged by a rebound in iron prices, they are now seeking to finance new activity at Cockatoo and a new project with a $50m bond offering.