Asia Aluminum Needs ‘Urgent Action’ From Investors

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Asia Aluminum Holdings Ltd. needs “urgent action” from investors because the company’s only offer for assets expires this month, its liquidator said. Formerly the region’s biggest maker of extruded aluminum, the company collapsed after a debt restructuring plan fell through in March. Ferrier Hodgson was appointed provisional liquidator March 16 and is trying to sell assets. “We have been negotiating with various interested parties but have received only one offer,” Ferrier Hodgson said in a filing to Singapore’s exchange today. That bid is from Golden Concord Pacific Ltd. at a gross price of $475.3 million. As the fallout from the financial crisis spreads, defaults and bankruptcies in the Asia-Pacific region have risen to 67 this year from 16 in the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If the Asia Aluminum offer doesn’t go through, offshore creditors risk bigger losses, the filing said. “If onshore legal proceedings, or an onshore bankruptcy, are to be commenced, the likelihood of any return to offshore creditors is minimal, at best.” Asia Aluminum was founded by Kwong Wui Chun in 1992 and makes aluminum in China for construction, machinery, beverage cans and vehicles, according to its Web site. Noteholders Asia Aluminum has both bondholders and pay-in-kind noteholders. Pay-in-kind notes let borrowers make interest payments using additional debt. Both groups opposed the restructuring. A group of pay-in-kind noteholders has filed with Hong Kong’s courts to remove Asia Aluminum and its parent from provisional liquidation, the filing said. If that happens, “the interests of all stakeholders will ultimately be in jeopardy,” it said. If the asset sale fails, “the most likely scenario is that there will be a flood of claims, demands, legal actions and freezing orders,” the release said. “It is then likely that a PRC Court-directed auction would take place with the proceeds to be used firstly to pay local PRC creditors.” To contact the reporters for this story: Tom Kohn in Hong Kong at tkohn@bloomberg.net