The sale of Hanjin Shipping’s Pacific assets is complete, with Korea Line Corp. signing over US$31.5 million for the routes and putting itself on the container shipping map.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the sale means that Korea Line will take over the business network and client information of Hanjin’s Asia-U.S. route, subsidiaries in seven countries including the U.S., China and Vietnam, and 574 workers based in Korea and overseas.
Hyundai Merchant Marine had been picked as the industry favourite for the acquisition of much of Hanjin’s assets, but it was announced earlier in November, 2016 that Korea Line had won the bid to take the assets; the sale will be complete on January 5, 2017.
Korea Line, a bulk carrier owned by Samra Midas Group, has recently come out of bankruptcy protection, and this sale is the first sign of its entrance into the container market following an economic slump in the dry bulk industry.
PTI recently reported that Hyundai Heavy, a sister company of Hyundai Merchant Marine, was to be split into four different companies in an attempt to weather the downturn in demand and relatively few new orders caused by the shipping industry’s oversupply woes; its non-core non-shipbuilding businesses will be separated to improve profitability; being split into three companies covering electrical systems, construction equipment and robotics.
