Hin Leong founder Lim Oon Kuin, his son Evan Lim and daughter Lim Huey Ching have declared bankruptcy, according to a notice published in Singapore’s government gazette.
BDO Advisory’s Leow Quek Shiong and Seah Roh Lin have been appointed managers of the bankruptcy estates.
This declaration confirms the Lims’ statement in October that they would file for bankruptcy as they did not have enough assets to settle all the claims against them.
The claims, which amount to $3.5bn, were brought by liquidators and creditor HSBC in a civil case, as they sought to recoup some of their losses.
So far, three of the family’s properties in upmarket residential districts of Singapore have been sold, bringing in about $75m.
Also, more than 140 vessels, from small coastal product tankers to VLCCs, have been systematically sold off.
Better known as OK Lim, the 82-year-old tanker and oil tycoon was sentenced to a 17.5-year jail term after being found guilty of cheating and forgery charges in mid-November.
Lim’s lawyer, Davinder Singh, has since filed an appeal against the judgment.
Lim will not be jailed until the outcome of the appeal has been decided.
Hin Leong collapsed in 2020 when banks withdrew financing after Lim admitted the company had lost large sums of money in the forward freight agreement markets.
Affiliated tanker operator, Ocean Tankers, and tanker-owning company Xihe went into liquidation shortly afterwards.
Lim was then hit by 130 criminal charges in which prosecutors alleged that 16 banks in Singapore suffered monetary losses of $291.9m out of the $2.7bn in loans they were tricked into extending to Hin Leong by the actions of Lim and family members involved in the business.
The now-defunct oil trader Hin Leong Trading was estimated to owe $3.5bn in debt to 23 banks at the time of its collapse after a plunge in oil prices in 2020.
Hin Leong was founded in 1973 and its demise has been described by prosecutors as “one of the world’s largest collapses of an oil trading firm”.
