Shares of the Chinese packaging manufacturer rose as much as 15% Wednesday, clawing back most of the ground lost the previous day after S&P's withdrew its BB long-term corporate credit rating for Nine Dragons and its BB- issue rating on the company's outstanding senior unsecured notes because of what it called "insufficient access" to company management.
"The company is willing to cooperate with S&P and ready to respond to any information request from S&P for purposes of the rating at any time," Nine Dragons said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange Wednesday.
The Chinese packaging manufacturer, which ended up 13.8% at 6.43 Hong Kong dollars ($0.83), said it had never received any written requests for information from S&P.
Nine Dragons has only one set of senior bonds outstanding, totaling $300 million, issued in 2008 and due in 2013.
The Nine Dragons episode underscores increased investor uncertainty over China-based industrial companies, following a regulatory probe in the U.S. that has put a spotlight on Chinese companies traded there. Nine Dragons trades in Hong Kong and isn't involved with that probe. But the scrutiny has contributed to broader unease in other markets, including Hong Kong, where similar nervousness has slowed bond deals for a number of companies.
Nine Dragons-controlled by entrepreneur Zhang Yin, China's richest woman-said it doesn't expect the S&P decision to have any material adverse impact on its business operations and financial conditions. It said the company has undrawn bank facilities worth around 19.77 billion Chinese yuan, or $3.05 billion.
Nine Dragons was halted from trading Tuesday after its shares fell more than 17% in response to the S&P disclosure. It resumed trading Wednesday after it released a statement on the S&P decision.
"S&P's rating withdrawal on Nine Dragons has become a nonissue, as the outstanding bond [amount] of the company is minimal," said Annisa Lee, credit analyst of Nomura Securities.
Nine Dragons said S&P's ratings withdrawal won't lead to any upward adjustments in interest rates under the terms of the notes, adding that only $47.6 million of the principal amount remains outstanding.
"In our view, the market has overreacted to S&P's rating withdrawal as Nine Dragons' operations remain normal," brokerage DBS Vickers said in a note Wednesday.
Analysts also said they believe the rating withdrawal was due more to a lack of management access than a concern over the company's financial situation.
"We believe that further clarification from management should ease investors' concerns about Nine Dragons' financial viability," Morgan Stanley said in a note Wednesday.
In response to Nine Dragons' denial, S&P said Wednesday it had nothing further to add and reiterated comments made on Tuesday.
"We require a certain level of interaction and information from the companies we rate, and in the case of Nine Dragons we determined that was no longer forthcoming," the rating agency said. "We therefore decided to withdraw the ratings after a final review."
Hong Kong's securities regulator said Wednesday it is in discussions with S&P to "better understand" the circumstances of the ratings firm's Tuesday disclosure on Nine Dragons, but it declined to elaborate.
Nine Dragons said it will consider naming a new ratings firm in relation to its 2013 notes, and added that Fitch Ratings remains as a ratings agency for the company. Fitch said it hadn't encountered any problems in getting access to Nine Dragons' management.
Fitch rates Nine Dragons double-B-minus. "There is no material new information of Nine Dragons that requires an immediate review," Su Aik Lim, director of Asia Pacific Corporates at Fitch, said Wednesday.