Long road ahead for restructuring

Restructuring in China will continue to be a difficult process, although some of the necessary tools are now in place, expert practitioners said at a conference in Hong Kong recently.

Although the country has come a long way since 1997, when all Chinese banks were state owned, there is still significant government involvement and close regulation by both the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission. It will take some time for the distressed company culture to evolve from one of insolvency to one of restructuring.

“It's no gentleman's game,” PricewaterhouseCoopers advisory services partner Ted Osborn told the Asialaw in-house summit in mid-March. “There's no culture of workouts as you might have elsewhere.”