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New twist in Titan saga

There has been another twist in the Titan Petrochemicals saga, with local reports quoting sources as saying that Warburg Pincus and its partner SouthernPec has failed to complete a deal sell the beleaguered company's storage assets to its white knight Guangdong Zhenrong Energy.

Vincent Wee, Hong Kong and South East Asia Correspondent

June 3, 2013

1 Min Read
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The four onshore fuel storage facilities in Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Shanghai, and Yantai, were the crown jewels of Titan's operations and after it ran into problems, liquidators sold them to Warburg Pincus and its partner SouthernPec. They were then to sell the assets back, together with Warburg's preference shares claim on StorageCo, the company holding the storage tank assets, to Guangdong Zhenrong for $350m, giving them a tidy $65m profit.

Reports quoted sources as saying that on the day the deal was meant to be closed in December, nobody from Warburg and SouthernPec showed up and they have been using trivial issues since then not to complete the deal. Meanwhile payment funds have been sitting in an escrow account since December,

It is suspected that the partners may have received a better offer from a third party, believed likely to be another state-backed oil firm.

The case is pending arbitration at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre but no hearing date has been set.

About the Author

Vincent Wee

Hong Kong and South East Asia Correspondent

Vincent Wee is Seatrade's Hong Kong correspondent covering Hong Kong and South China while also making use of his Malay language skills to cover the Malaysia and Indonesia markets. He has gained a keen insight and extensive knowledge of the offshore oil and gas markets gleaned while covering major rig builders and offshore supply vessel providers.

Vincent has been a journalist for over 15 years, spending the bulk of his career with Singapore's biggest business daily the Business Times, and covering shipping and logistics since 2007. Prior to that he spent several years working for Brunei's main English language daily as well as various other trade publications.

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