China Hongqiao is in trouble
The Australian reported that world’s biggest aluminium producer is in trouble, locked in a feud with its accountant over fraud allegations that have forced it to suspend trading of its shares and seek help from the central government in Beijing.
China Hongqiao, has drawn the attention of the global aluminium market and US trade officials as it soared to the pinnacle of the industry in the past few years, leapfrogging the production of giant competitors like Alcoa in the US and United Co Rusal in Russia. Its rise coincided with American allegations that Chinese companies helped by government subsidies flooded the world with cheap aluminium, coal and steel, depressing prices and decimating US industries.
Now China Hongqiao, a Hong Kong-listed company that employs nearly 60,000 people, is facing fraud allegations from two short sellers that the firm says threaten its financial stability.
Trouble for Hongqiao could up end the aluminium industry in China and present an opportunity for American producers who say the company has been using unfair tactics to dominate the industry. It could also reinforce broader concerns over what many view as questionable business practices by China’s big industrial giants, many of which are increasingly active on the global stage. China Hongqiao declined to comment.
In a March 4 letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, China Hongqiao sought assistance from a trade group, the Chinese Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association (CNIA), saying the short sellers’ claims of inflated profits were forcing the company’s accountant, Ernst & Young, to adopt an extremely conservative and careful attitude.
Then, on March 6, Ernst & Young notified the company it had suspended its audit of its 2016 financial results, according to a March 31 statement by China Hongqiao. China Hongqiao said that Ernst & Young asked the company to commission an independent investigation into the short sellers’ claims, delaying the release of the company’s annual financial results. Without audited results, China Hongqiao said in its letter to CNIA, the company risks an investigation from Hong Kong securities regulators and a credit crunch. The company has about USD 10 billion in debt, according to securities filings. It could be in default on a USD 700 million loan unless it gets waivers from creditors, says Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings. S & P, citing the move by Ernst & Young, has downgraded China Hongqiao’s bonds a notch deeper into junk territory to B-plus.
In its March 31 statement, China Hongqiao denied the short sellers’ fraud allegations, calling them “untrue and unfounded”. Ernst & Young did not comment.
China Hongqiao asked the CNIA and the Chinese government to come to its aid, warning in its March 4 letter of “serious effects” if nothing is done, including “regional systemic financial risks” and “dramatic social unrest.”
It isn’t clear whether the government or regulators will step in. The CNIA, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which oversees China’s industrial policies, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Paul Adkins, managing director of AZ China, a Hong Kong consultancy that tracks the Chinese aluminium industry said that “The events are very embarrassing for the Chinese and for Hongqiao.”
The dispute shines a light on the underpinning of a Chinese aluminium boom that has roiled trade relations with the US.
Source : The Australian