South Korea’s SM Group is interested prospective buyer of HMM, the country’s largest container shipping company. “Some compare us to a shrimp daring to swallow a whale, but that is impossible. We are already a whale,” it sounds.
The first buyer has entered the race for South Korea’s largest shipping company. Woo Oh-hyun, chairman of SM Group, said in an interview with The Korea Economic Daily that the company has enough financial ammunition to make a bid for HMM. “Some compare us to a shrimp daring to swallow a whale, but that is impossible. SM Group is already a whale, strong and big enough to swallow other whales,” he told the newspaper.
$3.5 billion
The chairman revealed that the group has agreed on a price it is willing to pay for the majority stake in HMM. The price should not exceed KRW 4.5 billion, equivalent to about $3.5 billion at the current exchange rate.
The South Korean government has long been preparing a privatisation of HMM and recently appointed the advisers and auditors who will be responsible for selling a large stake in the carrier. The two state owners, Korea Development Bank and Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC), together own 40.6% of the carrier. The third-largest shareholder is SM Group, with a 6.5% stake.
SM Group owns the smaller shipping company SM Line. SM Group wants to merge HMM and SM Line to build the shipping company into Asia’s largest shipping company, Woo said.
