There’s just 19 days to go until Hanjin Shipping must meet stipulations set out by creditors or risk entering court receivership. The South Korean line was set a revised final deadline of September 4, having failed to meet all the necessary criteria set out by its lenders. A key stumbling block has been Hanjin’s failure to get charter rates discounted as demanded by the banks. Principle opposition to this has come from Seaspan, which has seven ships on charter to Hanjin. Various Korean media sources are claiming today that the two sides are now close to seeking an unspecified alternative deal – one that does not necessarily involve charter fee cuts.
A spokesperson for Hanjin Shipping told Splash today that the company was confident it could now meet the September 4 deadline and avoid court receivership.
“We’ve been diligently carrying on all our efforts to meet the conditions of the voluntary restructuring agreement, and are planning to wrap up bondholders’ meeting, charter rate adjustment negotiations and ship finance maturity adjustments by early September,” the spokesperson said.
Hanjin Shipping announced its Q2 results, notching a $182m loss. Its container shipments did increase 7.2% however and it said it was confident freight rates would pick up in the third quarter.
