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The conference room was packed with dozens of angry creditors representing Asia’s biggest banks. They wanted to know what had happened to a $650m loan, extended in March 2014 to China Fishery Group and related companies, as concerns grew that they would never be repaid
会议室里挤满了数十名愤怒的债权人，他们代表亚洲多家大银行。他们想知道2014年3月份向中渔集团(China Fishery Group)及其关联公司发放的6.5亿美元贷款的情况，并日益担心这些贷款将会永远得不到偿还。
It was December 2015, and the creditors ranged from HSBC and Standard Chartered to Maybank, Malaysia’s largest financial services group. They had summoned Ng Joo Siang, the then chief executive of China Fishery, a Hong Kong-based, family-controlled operation, to explain why the company had stopped complying with the terms of the debt — secured to refinance the 2013 purchase of a Peruvian fisheries business. Within minutes Mr Ng was heard shouting at the assembled audience as they grilled him on what happened to their money, according to three people present.
这是2015年12月的事情，当时债权人既有汇丰(HSBC)和渣打(Standard Chartered)这些银行，也有马来西亚最大的金融服务集团马来亚银行(Maybank)。他们叫来了时任中渔集团首席执行官黄裕翔(Ng Joo Siang)，要求他解释为何该公司不再履行债务协议条款——所借债务用于为2013年收购一家秘鲁渔业企业提供再融资。中渔集团是一家总部在香港的家族控股企业。根据三位在场人士的话，当时人们围住黄裕翔质问资金去向，结果没几分钟就听到他冲这些人叫喊起来。
Two years on from that clash at the Maybank offices on the 18th floor of Hong Kong’s Citic Tower, the creditors are still waiting.
这场冲突发生在香港中信大厦18层马来亚银行的办公室。如今两年过去了，债权人们仍在等待。
The wrangling has since shifted to New York, where the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2016, to the surprise of its creditors in Hong Kong. In a US court filing, some of those creditors raised concerns regarding the Ng family over “questionable transactions totalling more than $1bn and suspicions of substantial overstatements of revenues and receivables/prepayments” made by the group. They asked the court to appoint a trustee, William Brandt, who is shuttling between South America, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong trying to sell assets including the Peruvian business.
自2016年6月中渔集团依据美国破产法第11章申请破产保护之日起——此举令其香港债权人颇感意外——这场争执就转移到了纽约。在向美国法院提交的一份文件中，一些债权人表示就“总额超过10亿美元的可疑交易”对黄氏家族感到担忧，并怀疑该集团“大幅高报营收和应收/预付账款”。他们请求法庭指定一位受托人，如今这位受托人威廉?勃兰特(William Brandt)在南美、纽约、新加坡和香港之间奔波，试图出售包括那家秘鲁企业在内的资产。
A separate investigation into the group’s finances, by FTI, the consultants, raised questions about the ultimate destination of some of the money the creditors lent. Mr Brandt is investigating this aspect of the case, according to court documents. Meanwhile, the Ngs and at least one of the lawyers who represent the family, Bertie Mehigan of the Mehigan law firm in Hong Kong, strongly deny that the family has done anything wrong.
咨询公司FTI对中渔集团的财务状况进行了单独调查，发现部分债权人所提供资金的最终去向存疑。根据法庭文件，勃兰特正在调查这方面的情况。与此同时，黄氏兄妹以及至少一位代表黄氏家族的律师——香港Mehigan律所的伯蒂?梅西甘(Bertie Mehigan)坚决否认黄氏家族有不当行为。
The banks declined to comment about the China Fishery loan deal. They have sold much of their debt to hedge funds on both sides of the Pacific in recent months. But the case has triggered questions over whether, despite the extra safeguards regulators introduced after the financial crisis, enough due diligence is being carried out in some cases by banks before they lend to corporate clients.
这些银行拒绝就中渔集团的贷款协议置评。近几个月来，它们把其中部分债务卖给了太平洋两岸的对冲基金。但是该案提出了一个问题：尽管监管机构在金融危机之后出台了额外的保障措施，但在某些情况下，银行向企业客户发放贷款之前是否进行了充分的尽职调查？
“It [has turned into] a massive blame game,” says a lawyer acting for some bondholders. “Why did someone not say at the time: Where did it start? How did we miss it?’”
一些债券持有人的代理律师表示：“这（已经变成了）大规模的推卸责任。为什么当时人们不说问题从哪里开始的？我们怎么就没注意到？”
The Ng family sits at the top of a relatively straightforward industrial fishing business. Launched in the late 1980s China Fishery ships trawl the oceans from off the coast of Chile to the cold waters around Vladivostok. Its factories — most are in China but it has one floating facility — turn the catch into fishmeal, and frozen fish fingers.
黄氏家族掌控着一个相对简单的工业化渔业捕捞业务。中渔集团成立于上世纪80年代末，捕捞范围从智利附近海域到符拉迪沃斯托克周边的寒冷水域，旗下工厂——大多数在中国，但有一个上市公司——把鱼做成鱼粉和冻鱼条。
