South Korea's SM Group could acquire a controlling stake of the Seoul HMM shipping company if its price does not was more than 4.5 trillion won ($3.5 billion). The said SM Group President Woo Oh-Hyun in an interview with the newspaper "The Korea Economic Daily" explaining that his company, which is present in several industrial sectors and also in the maritime transport segment mainly with SM Line, Korea Shipping and Korea Line, has sufficient financial resources to acquire the first domestic containerized shipping carrier.

Woo Oh-Hyun has specified that SM Group will participate in the race to gain control of the company as soon as its sale will be announced with the aim of merging it with MS Line in order to create synergies. "We believe - he specified - that a reasonable price per HMM is about four trillion won. We can also offer up to 4.5 trillion won, but if the Price exceeds this threshold, even by a single won, we will give up».

SM Group currently owns 6.56% of the capital of HMM and is the third largest shareholder after the state banking institution Korea Development Bank and the state-owned financial institution Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC) holding 20.98% respectively and 19.96% HMM. Recalling that in 2017 HMM issued more of three trillion won in bonds to raise resources that were mostly acquired by KDB and KOBC and referring to the rumours that the bonds held by KDB and KOBC would be converted into shares, increasing the combined stake of HMM owned by the two financial institutions at 74%, Woo Oh-Hyun has stated that "if this happens, I will not answer to the offer'.