Bond investors are only too aware of the accounting maxim that revenues are vanity, profits are sanity and only cash is reality. Sino-Forest has been brought back to the real world. It has failed to meet a deadline to publish its results, delayed the final report of an investigation into fraud claims and will miss an interest payment. It is considering its options. These are limited.
Withholding a $10m payment should trigger notices of default from its bondholders. That would mark the start of, at best, a legal fight. More importantly, the decision not to pay such a small sum, which could have mollified investors, is a strong sign that the company is desperate to hoard cash.
This makes the upbeat tone last week of Judson Martin, its chief executive, curious. He told Bloomberg that the company had “strong liquidity” and nearly $600m in the bank ($571m, according to the November investigation report). ANZ Bank credit analysts think that just $206m is unrestricted offshore cash when discounting restricted funds and money held in Chinese entities.