Rickmers Holding says no impact on financing from Rickmers Maritime's woes

On 15 November Rickmers Maritime announced it had missed a SGD4.26m ($2.98m) coupon payment on its SGD100m notes due in 2017 and flagged that it was unable to demonstrate it could continue as growing concern.

In a statement Rickmers Holdings said the default would have no impact on its financing or that of its subsidiaries.

“Rickmers Holding AG and its subsidiaries on the one hand and Rickmers Maritime on the other do not have any common financing structures; their sources of finance are fully separate from one another,” it said.

“Neither does the coupon-payment default on the bond issued by Rickmers Maritime trigger any cross-defaults or events of default under the terms of the financing structures of Rickmers Holding AG or its subsidiaries.”

Rickmers Holding had already moved to distance its self from the trust last month selling its 100% holding in the trustee-manager of Rickmers Maritime to Brick Holding International Invest owned by chairman and non-executive director Bertram Rickmers.

There will be some impact in terms of ship management and other services provided to the trust.

“From an overall group perspective the Rickmers Group merely provides an insignificant volume of maritime services for the vessels operated by Rickmers Maritime. Furthermore there also is no operational impact on the vessels owned by Rickmers Group,” Rickmers Holding said.

Rickmers Maritime is in a stand-off with its bondholders over a financial restructuring plan and says it will go into liquidation if the proposals are not approved.