Sanko Steamship Seeks Financial Rehab

Tokyo-based shipping firm Sanko Steamship Co. is making final arrangements to seek the rescheduling of loan repayments through a private-sector intermediary to turn around its business amid a deterioration in the global shipping market, Kyodo News reported Friday, citing sources close to the matter.

The company, which once went bankrupt in 1985 with the biggest postwar debt in Japan at the time, will seek to rehabilitate its business under an out-of-court “alternative dispute resolution” procedure, the sources said, according to Kyodo.

For the ADR, Sanko needs to obtain the consent of all of its creditors for a moratorium on debt repayments, which could hamper the process, Kyodo reported.

The company had liabilities of Y108.1 billion on a consolidated basis as of the end of March last year.

-Dow Jones Newswires