Business Korea, a Seoul-based portal, is reporting struggling Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) is looking to sell off its tanker division to try and stay solvent.
HMM, which is also in the process of offloading part of its dry bulk unit plus a terminal in Busan, has a fleet of 13 tankers made up of four VLCCs, two suezmaxes and seven product carriers. It sold its LNG carrier business in 2014. Meanwhile, a total of six companies are interested in buying sister firm, Hyundai Securities, a brokerage, part of the proceeds of this sale will also go to saving HMM.
Increasingly, it looks like HMM will become a pure container play if it can survive through 2016. A meeting with creditors is scheduled in the middle of this month to discuss pushing back debt payments.
HMM, saddled by more than $5bn in debts and with crucial repayment debts coming up, declined to comment when contacted by Splash today.
However, a spokesperson did tell Business Korea regarding the tanker selloff speculation: “We are currently considering it as part of the measures but nothing is confirmed or decided yet.”
HMM’s share price closed in Seoul today up 3.44%.
