"The country's largest private bank, KBZ, is taking a leading businessperson and his company to court, alleging unpaid debts in excess of US$200 million in what is believed to be Myanmar’s largest ever loan default. KBZ has filed suits against businessman U Ko Ko Htoo and Myanmar Annawa Swan A Shin Company Limited at the Yangon Region High Court, alleging he and the company had failed to repay loans and had accumulated a total debt including interest of around K326 billion (US$221.4 million at current exchange rates). Ko Ko Htoo is the managing director of MAS and his family holds 100 percent of the company, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration. MAS owns and operates one of the country’s busiest ports, Myanmar Industrial Port in Yangon’s Ahlone Township. In 2016, the International Finance Corporation provided a $40 million convertible loan to MAS to expand the port but the relationship later soured over corporate governance issues, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. The loan was envisaged as the first phase of a $200 million financing package that would also have included $160 million in long-term senior loans from the IFC and other foreign lenders, but the second phase never materialised. IFC confirmed to Frontier that it exited the project in December 2018 after MAS repaid the $40 million loan. KBZ commenced litigation against Ko Ko Htoo and MAS in December 2019 and this month the bank began presenting evidence to support its claim. Frontier understands it is the largest such claim to be heard in a Myanmar court, and that, taken together, Ko Ko Htoo and MAS are possibly the largest private sector debtor in the Myanmar banking system. At a January 13 hearing attended by Frontier, lawyers for KBZ alleged that Ko Ko Htoo owed the bank more than K63 billion in principal and interest as of October 30, 2019. In a separate hearing the following day they alleged that MAS had accrued debt of K262.8 billion to November 6, 2018..."