South Korea-based Hanjin Shipping Co, currently under court bankruptcy protection, is most likely to liquidate. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on Tuesday was expected to deliver its due diligence report that recommended liquidation of Hanjin Shipping. PwC was appointed by the South Korean court in September to review Hanjin’s assets after it filed for court receivership on August 31.
PwC has estimated in the report that the value of Hanjin Shipping’s liquidation would be about KRW1.9trn won ($1.6bn), compared with the KRW800bn it could generate if Hanjin remained operating. The court will make a final decision based on the evaluation from PwC.
It had long been believed that Hanjin Shipping would not be able to avoid liquidation, given that its debts exceeded $5bn. It has already sold off more than 90% of its vessels and next month a majority of its employees are expected to join Samra Midas Group, the owner of Korea’s bulk carrier Korea Line Corp. Hanjin’s initial vain hope that it could shrink down to an intra-Asian operation look to have proved forlorn.
As of the beginning of this week Korea’s container ship capacity is 510,000 teus down from 1.06m before Hanjin Shipping went into receivership.
Meanwhile, South Korea-based KMTC has bought four Samsung Heavy-built ships for a reported $5.3m per ship, each of which is 4,275 teu. They are listed as Hanjin Norfolk, Hanjin Piraeus, Hanjin Durban and Hanjin Rio de Janeiro. KMTC now has 126,351 slots, putting it in 19th place worldwide.