Nation’s former top soybean importer seeks bankruptcy, restructuring amid debt problems

Shandong Sunrise Group Co, a major private edible oil refinery in East China’s Shandong Province that used to be China’s largest soybean importer, recently declared bankruptcy, saying it was insolvent.

Established on December 1, 1999, Shandong Sunrise couldn’t pay off maturing debts and thus applied for bankruptcy and restructuring, according to a filing published on the Information Website of National Bankrupt Enterprises’ Recombination Cases on Friday.

The filing, however, didn’t specify why the company had accumulated heavy debts.

Shandong Sunrise couldn’t be reached by the Global Times on Wednesday and the company’s official website has not provided more updated data as of press time.

The case of Shandong Sunrise is special and unique, and it doesn’t represent the overall status of Chinese soybean importers, Ma Wenfeng, a senior analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Ma also added that its bankruptcy had nothing to do with the ongoing China-US trade tension.

Shandong Sunrise’s debt problem came to light several years ago. Domestic news site jiemian.com reported on Tuesday that the company, affected by trades that went wrong in 2015, began experiencing financing strains. At that point, the local government helped the company by pushing commercial banks to provide more credit to it.

In 2012, it was the country’s biggest importer of soybeans, with a volume of 5.51 million tons, representing 9.4 percent of the country’s total imports of the crop, according to jiemian.com.

In addition to soybean imports, the company’s trading business includes chemical products such as crude and fuel oil.

It also owns 20 kinds of facilities for chemical and refined production like asphalt.

The company, which is run by Shao Zhongyi, China’s 230th richest man according to Forbes’ 2016 rich list and his brother, recorded sales of 43.2 billion yuan ($6.39 billion) in 2016, including 26.1 billion yuan from trading, Reuters reported on Monday.

Of this, the total value of its chemical business was 16.85 billion yuan, said the report.