Another round of discussions with the South Korean flagship carrier’s major shareholders, Korea Development Bank and Korea Ocean Business Corp, broke down just after midnight, Seoul time.
After the Harim-JKL consortium was selected as the preferred bidder for the 57.9% stake in HMM held by KDB and KOBC in December, both sides should have agreed the sale details by 23 January.
Initial discussions
Initial discussions failed to produce agreement and were postponed until yesterday, but no resolution was reached. The parties continued negotiating through the night, hopeful of completing the sale.
If the bonds are exchanged by 2025, Harim-JKL’s stake could be diluted to 38.9%, and the state-controlled organisations’ holding increased to 32.8%, leaving just a gap of just 6.1 percentage points between them. Even if KDB and KOBC were no longer the majority shareholders, they would retain management rights, including being entitled to appoint independent directors.
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Source: Loadstar
