The Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC) and Korea Development Bank (KDB) selected the consortium yesterday Pan Ocean and JKL Partners Inc. as bidder preferential for the acquisition of 58% of outstanding shares of the containerised shipping company HMM, a large share of the part in the hands of KOBC, which is the financial institution created by the in 2017 after the bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping to support the South Korean shipping industry, and the South Korean Bank for KDB development. Pan Ocean is, the shipping company of the South Korean food group Harim and is committed to mainly in the maritime bulk transport sector while South Korean private equity firm JKL Partners Inc. is a long-standing partner of Harim itself, which in 2015 it had supported the investment to acquire Pan Ocean.

The value of the bid submitted by the consortium would amount to 6.4 trillion won ($4.9 billion). KOBC and KDB have made I note that they plan to complete the privatisation of the HMM, through a tender launched this summer ( of 21 July 2023), by the first half of 2024 after further negotiations to detail the terms of the contract.

It should be noted that the sale of the controlling stake in the South Korean company had aroused the interest of the German Hapag-Lloyd, which then exited the competition also as a result of the the South Korean shipping industry's opposition to a sale of the Seoul-based company to a foreign company ( of 25 and 30 August 2023).

On the occasion of the announcement of the outcome of the tender, Korea Ocean Business Corporation recalled that since its founding As of last September, it provided financial support to 129 companies of the national maritime sector for a value of over 9.3 trillion won, of which HMM accounts for only 37% of the amount, and whereas there are only seven KOBC employees working for HMM, or 4% of the total workforce of 174 people in the KOBC.