A Singapore court on Thursday ordered that iron ore trader Radiant World be placed under the interim management of KPMG, Bloomberg News reported, in a case brought by the local unit of Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group.
Radiant World has come under mounting pressure since banks and counterparties began distancing themselves over concerns that invoices provided to its banks may not have been valid, which it denies.
The court appointed KPMG restructuring executives to be interim judicial managers of Radiant World Corporation Pte, its main operating unit in Singapore, the report said, citing people familiar with the decision.
Radiant World did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Mizuho and KPMG declined to comment on the matter.
Mizuho Bank in June provided some $100 million in credit to Radiant World that was secured by invoices that a counterparty to the iron ore trader later said were invalid, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing documents and a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The bank filed a case against Radiant World in Singapore’s Supreme Court in August.
Radiant World has said there is no need to appoint judicial managers because it is not insolvent and that doing so would not be in the best interest of its creditors.
A fund linked to US bank Jefferies has obtained freezing orders from courts in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore against Radiant World and its founder Pinkesh Nahar.
Singapore’s police force said last month that it was investigating Radiant World after receiving reports about the company, without giving further details.
(Reporting by Solomon Cefai Editing by Tony Munroe and Barbara Lewis)
