Entrepreneur fails to stop bankruptcy action over $34m business debt

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The court rejected her proposal to sell her 18 Orchard Road properties to repay the banks.

SINGAPORE - An entrepreneur who owns 18 residential, retail and commercial properties in Orchard Road has failed in a High Court appeal to stop two banks from taking bankruptcy action against her to recover more than $34 million in business debts.

The decision comes at a time when bankruptcy-related actions are on the rise in Singapore: Latest official data shows that 2,334 bankruptcy applications were made in the first six months of 2024, up 25 per cent on the same period in 2023, while 594 were subsequently declared bankrupt, an increase of 11 per cent.

First, she wanted to be given nine to 10 months to sell her 13 Centrepoint properties as part of a collective sale of all the units in Centrepoint.Finally, she said that her Hovoh business is still running and able to generate revenue to repay her debts, adding that there is an interested buyer for her business.

In a written judgment, the judge said that Ms Yap’s repayment proposal “is far too vague to be given any serious consideration” and it is “long on professions of optimism but exceedingly short on concrete specifics”. The judge also noted that Ms Yap’s aim of completing the collective sale of the Centrepoint properties “appears especially fanciful”, given the complex moving parts of a broad redevelopment involving three plots of land in the Centrepoint vicinity put forth by her.

On this, the judge said Ms Yap has not provided evidence to support her claim and if the additional $40 million worth of debt were true, it raises the question of whether she has “been intentionally shielding material information from the outset about the number of creditors and the amount of debt she has”.

 

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