KNM’s current board loses creditors’ support following KL High Court ruling

(Focus Malaysia) – SEVERAL substantial scheme creditors of KNM Group Bhd and subsidiary KNM Process System Sdn Bhd have obtained an order from the Kuala Lumpur High Court directing chairman of the scheme of arrangement (SOA) to adjourn the meeting planned for today (Oct 12).

In other words, the court wants the cash-strapped oil & gas (O&G) engineering outfit to postpone its creditors’ meeting to a later date so as to enable the court to appoint an approved liquidator to make an assessment report on the viability of the proposed scheme.

With this latest development, the current KNM board has lost an avenue to obtain an approval for its SOA before the company’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) slated this coming Monday (Oct 16).

The notice of the said SOA meeting was contained in an Explanatory Statement (ES) by the current board without appointing an independent scheme adviser.

KNM had earlier issued the ES on Sept 25 then suddenly retracted it to eventually re-appear published on Oct 2 and Oct 10 with amendments.

As it is, the KL High Court has ordered the appointment of a professional liquidator to assess and prepare a conclusive report on the feasibility of the SOA which was earlier produced and proposed by the current KNM board.

Recall that KNM’s CEO Ravindrasingham Balasingham had made an appeal to the public shareholders (retail investors) on Sept 8 to back the current board as the directors had “earned the confidence of the creditors and that any plans to remove and replace (the current board) could derail the process to extend the restraining order”.

Yesterday’s (Oct 11) application was heard before Justic Liza Chan. Datuk Loh Siew Cheang appeared as lead counsel and was assisted by John Wong Yoh Hon of Shui-Tai Advocates & Solicitors, Eizlan Farhan Nakhrowi and Claudia Nyon. KNM was represented by Bahari Yeow,

At today’s mid-day close, KNM was up 1 sen or 9.09% to 12 sen with 38.99 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM486 mil.